


edge of a blade

by toadsage



Series: never find peace (the war is too pretty) [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dark Sasuke, Drug Use, Gen, Horse Boy Sasuke, Otokage Sasuke, Politics, warlord au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-03-07 03:29:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13425840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toadsage/pseuds/toadsage
Summary: Five years ago, Karin gave him the idea.The way out of all our problems,she'd said,don't you want power? This is how you get it.Sasuke listened to her. Five years, he spends, building his empire and destroying everything in his path to victory. Four years ago, he birthed himself from the flames of Otogakure, and with his friends, he built a new land of prospects and prosperity.Four years ago, he let the only man who would object to his rule go free. Four years ago he was weak and sentimental and that is leading to his ruin. Today, he is going to face down the largest battle, the largest obstruction to his happiness, and he is going to win.





	1. every war is based on deceit

**Author's Note:**

> heh... title is from mcr's "kiss the ring". 
> 
> this is my epic political dark sasuke i guess... he's a meanie but he loves his horse. also it's kind of canon divergent where kabuto had no part in the ninja war, sasuke took over oto, and invaded a bunch of countries instead of spending all his time trying to kill itachi/danzo. also there's fantasy elements i guess. just go with it i suppose... 
> 
> raz hongmunmu has done/continues to do (???) AMAZING art for this au so... check out ugly sasuke [here](https://hongmunmu.tumblr.com/post/169509616030/even-more-warlord-au) (he's ugly not the art)

“I will fucking chuck up on you if you come three steps closer to me,” Sasuke threatens, holding a knife out from where he is taking a sponge bath. Only a few people are allowed close enough to him when he’s bathing, his guards being some of his most trusted soldiers, so he doesn’t monitor his speech.  
“Sasuke, shit is not looking great,” Suigetsu starts, and the knife flies from Sasuke’s hand to hit the wooden screen behind Suigetsu’s ear. Sasuke’s always had uncanny accuracy, and it’s one of the few traits he has that given him this level of respect.  
“Oh, shit is not looking great, is it? And here I thought that waging war against the greatest nation in the world would be a fun jaunt out. Is it raining? Will that ruin our picnic?” Sasuke mocks, tired and saddlesore and mean with anxiety.  
“I didn’t mean to imply -” Suigetsu tries, knowing that Sasuke in this mood will only get worse, but Suigetsu sticks his foot in his mouth at the best of times. It’s unkind for Sasuke to behave like this, selfish when he knows everyone else feels what he does but worse, but Sasuke didn’t get to where he is by being a soft touch.  
“Of course you didn’t fucking _mean,_ you never fucking mean,” Sasuke snaps, sponging at his back with the cold water that they could afford. Sasuke’s always taken cold showers, his teacher long ago telling him that warm baths are for children, the ill, the old, and women. Warm baths, clear alcohol, and menthol cigarettes are the things Sasuke avoids like the plague, and it’s always garnered him respect. Made him seem older and more experienced than he is. “What are my rules for when my cock is out?”  
“Suck it or stand back, but either way shut up,” Suigetsu parrots back, because Suigetsu knows all Sasuke’s rules, word for word. That’s how Suigetsu lives his life and he doesn’t question it, doesn’t question Sasuke out of loyalty, trust, and respect.  
“And?” Sasuke asks, the edge in his voice abating.

Suigetsu doesn’t answer. Suigetsu holds his tongue as Sasuke finishes cleaning his body, even silently helps Sasuke clean his hair, carefully picking at all the knots as Sasuke hisses with the pain. Sasuke’s lost a limb, been stabbed and burnt and drowned; the pain of detangling, the sharp needle-stabs of it all, never fail to make him wince.

“I ought to just chop it all off,” Sasuke sighs, when he finally slips into his cotton sleep-pants, and takes a seat on the carpet. The lumps of the grass underneath aren’t very well masked by the carpet, but it’s softer than the saddle he’d been riding in all day.  
“It looks hot,” Suigetsu finally speaks, and Sasuke rolls his eyes.  
“I don’t want to look hot, I want to look fearsome.”  
“Fearsome _is_ hot, Sasuke,” Suigetsu tells him, and Sasuke can’t help but roll his eyes again.

“Three days and I’ll shave, you tell Karin that,” Sasuke replies, lying down on the carpet of his tent and closing his eyes. He just wants a fucking rest, really. How hard is it for a warmongering beast to get a good night’s sleep around here?

“What will you tell me, boys?” Karin’s amused voice fills the tent like fluid in a tank, and it takes every ounce of Sasuke’s self control to not point a sword at her. If he didn’t trust her so much, put his life in her hands and let her do what she wanted with it, he would hate her. He would fear her, because she is a death god in the body of a woman. “You better not be having a dick measuring contest in here.”

“What did I say about letting the witch into my tent?” Sasuke calls out to his guards, and he can hear the clacking of their armour as they stand to attention, terrified Sasuke will punish them.

Sasuke would never punish a man for falling to Karin, would never dream of it. Most men are not as strong as her force of will is, and Sasuke doesn’t believe in punishing one for the call of nature. It would be easier to grow a tree in a day, or to reverse the cycle of death. (Sasuke has seen both happen before.)

“Sasuke, you must stop calling me such kind things,” Karin says, her voice sweet like poisoned wine, “it might go to my head.”  
“Everything goes to your head, you foul wench. You probably get off on people insulting you, just cream yourself thinking of men cursing your name.”  
Her reply is a smile, a perfect half-moon of deferred blame, a non-answer and evidence of the truth.

Sasuke rolls his eyes and lets Suigetsu get him up, slinging his arm around Suigetsu’s shoulder and sitting down on the bench of their war council table. The three of them don’t take up much space against the round, but it’s enough that they’ve covered a decent portion of map with a nice collection of water glasses.

“Good news or bad news?” Karin asks him, and Sasuke rests his face against the table.  
“Bad,” he grunts, and he feel the air moving as Karin sighs at his antics.  
“Konoha is definitely trying to take action against us. It’s earlier than projected and they’ve had enough recovery time that they are a significant threat against us. If we go into war now, chances are we will lose, or at least will lose a large number of men and an amount of land that will put our plans back at least five years, probably more. Additionally, Kabuto is definitely trying to start an uprising against you, and he most surely has leaks within our army. He’s planning to take power through a coup.”  
“I tried to tell you,” Suigetsu says, apology writ all over his face, and Sasuke sighs. He probably should’ve listened.  
“I regret being such a kind, caring, and principled man. I really _am_ a doormat,” Sasuke deadpans, and Suigetsu snorts at that. The Leaf would shit themselves if they knew Sasuke said that about himself, their propaganda about him eating children’s hearts for fun boasting otherwise about Sasuke’s personality. They would probably call him narcissistic, egoistic to the extreme, this a clear sign of a maniacal tyrant.

Instead, Sasuke picks up a loose cigar from the box he keeps in the middle of the war table, and bites the end off instead of wasting time snipping it. It’s easier for him to light it with a jutsu, achieving a slow and even burn, priming the tobacco with the warmth of the flame before properly lighting it. He smokes it with purpose, and Karin follows his lead with her own. Suigetsu, having been Sasuke’s bodyguard and confidante for years, now, has already poured them all a drink.

When they were younger, this ritual used to be cheap wine and marijuana stolen from those older than them. They would smoke up a closet, the four of them drunk off wine and winning. This was before they achieved their goals, before they became something more than just battlemongers and lackeys.

Now they feast themselves on the most expensive vices they can get their hands on, spending money like water and giving all they earn back to the people. Economic growth is important to a good nation, and was one of the few things Sasuke was glad he studied.

“One day,” Sasuke says, the smoke coming out of his mouth and escaping the tent through the opening in the cloth, “I will have the luxury of not having to do all this shit. One day, I will sit on a real fucking couch, all day, and I will watch tv until my muscles decay.”  
“Can’t pussy out now,” Karin replies, and Suigetsu nods in agreement with her, “too late for all of us now, ain’t it?”

She only talks like that around them, the crassness she learnt from growing up in the depths of Oto nearly perfectly unlearnt. She is not a woman of the force, she is not a woman of the army, and she acts like it. She acts like she’s a princess, and everyone lets her. Sasuke has to earn respect; to Karin, it is freely given.

“The _good_ news,” Karin says, “is that Juugo is returning from the northern front in a few days. He has secured the help of the Mizukage and the Tsuchikage. While the Sand has pledged to help the Leaf, the Raikage is staying neutral for now. The Fire Daimyo is pushing for diplomacy over war, and the Wind Daimyo is opposing the stance of the Kazekage. As long as we stay in the smaller nations for now and don’t breach their borders, we should avoid any immediate trouble. I would advise that we spend our current time and energy securing our strength with the smaller tribes and nations, training our forces, and preparing for the war to come.”  
“Too late,” Sasuke says, and Karin startles, turning back to him. He has never made any large order without consulting her, has never hidden any of his plans from her. It would be foolish to not use one of his best assets. “I snuck over the border last night and fucked the Hokage’s wife.”

Suigetsu can’t handle it, he laughs so hard that cigar smoke comes out of his nose. Sasuke grins back, glad for this little reprieve where he can share a smile, glad that he can joke around with _someone._ If he couldn’t, he think he’d go properly crazy, would really turn into the monster that everyone feared him to be.

When everyone you meet thinks of you as a god, as a king, as a superhuman being, it’s hard to not begin to behave like you are.

 

No one touches Sasuke’s horse except him, and his one most trusted stableboy. Sasuke’s third favourite horse was injured once by a traitorous stablehand, and Sasuke decapitated the man right in the middle of the camp, a clean cleave that took the man’s ugly face off his disloyal body. After that, people followed Sasuke’s words a lot more. People took Sasuke seriously when they knew he would follow through on his threats. People believed Sasuke when they knew he was telling the truth. People always like to think that they, and everyone they know, are not capable of murder. Sasuke had to prove himself otherwise.

Heihe is a beautiful stallion, his glossy coat better maintained than Sasuke’s own skin. He brushes him down himself, taking the hour after he has finished riding to take care of his steed. Even in his tiredness, it it worth it to treat Heihe well. Like all his subjects, Sasuke believes in treating those you rely on, those who carry you to greatness, with the respect they deserve. That’s how you convince people to love you.

Sasuke, after all, is not Orochimaru. And, may the ancestors forbid it, he will never become Orochimaru.

“You’re beautiful, you know that?” he whispers into Heihe’s ear, and the two cobras currently winding around Heihe’s feet hiss. Heihe doesn’t startle at snakes anymore, he isn’t worried when he sees them and even lets them climb his back and nestle around his neck. “Shut up you two, stop being so fucking jealous. You know I love you as well, I can love more than one thing at once.”  
“You don’t need to love Fanchan,” Yanjing, the snake with the spectacle pattern on her hood, says, “Save it for me.”

“Hey! Yanjing is being mean to me!” Fanchan protests against his older sister, flicking at her with his tail and chasing her up Heihe’s back.  
“Don’t be cruel,” Sasuke chastises her, but there’s nothing but fondness in his words. They were some of the first on his side, the first snakes to believe in him over Orochimaru. He’s rewarded them well for it.

Sasuke braids bright ribbons into Heihe’s mane, the red against his mottled coat to show off his beauty and power.  The red of Heihe is the brightest part of his dress, the rest of his armour a deep blue or black. Red for fire, red for passion and power and love. Red for the Uchiha. Red, because it is who supports him that should stand out.

“E-excuse me,” a timid young runner disturbs him, finally deciding to say something after having watched Sasuke work for a full ten minutes. Maybe he thought Sasuke would merely acknowledge his presence. Maybe he was trying hard to not piss his pants.  
“Yes?” Sasuke replies, his voice lazy, floating through the air. The kid looks young, maybe twelve, and he looks like he thinks Sasuke’s going to bite his head off. Sasuke’s not even a decade older than him, and yet the kid looks at him like he’s going to be killed for daring to disturb him. Sasuke wouldn’t. Sasuke doesn’t kill kids.  
“Um… the representatives from the Leaf…” the runner says, voice becoming smaller and smaller as he speaks, until he is almost too quiet to hear.  
“Yes? Speak up,” Sasuke prompts him, putting the brushes away and wiping the muck onto his pants.  
“The representatives, from the, uh, Leaf, are here. The Lady-”  
“The Lady?” Sasuke asks, always amused to hear Karin’s nickname.  
“Miss, Uzumaki. Sir, she wanted you to come. Prepare with her. She said you were. Uh. Dirty.”

Sasuke scratches the boy’s head and then hands him some beef jerky and a handful of loose change from his saddlebags. “Thanks, kid.”

 

The kid leads them through the camp, away from the makeshift stables towards Sasuke’s own tent. The stables and Sasuke’s tent are on opposite sides of the camp for two reasons: one, Sasuke likes to show that he trusts his men; and two, Sasuke likes to walk the length of the camp, assessing what’s going on. It makes him seem accessible, ever-present, watching. It keeps everyone on their toes.

The kid has to run twice as fast, coins jangling together in his pocket as he keeps up with Sasuke’s long, measured strides. Sasuke’s probably twice his height, his broad shoulders and strong face overshadowing the child. Sasuke’s snakes move behind him, long bodies carefully avoided by everyone who must walk past them. Once the first few people died of snake bites, everyone became more careful about what was underfoot. Everyone respected Sasuke more when they saw his snakes bite him.

He looks relieved when he delivers Sasuke into Karin’s waiting, witchy hands, like he can leave and go and finally shit his pants in peace. Sasuke ruffles the kid’s hair again and tells him to get to it. Karin gives him a smile. (When they first talked about this, Sasuke’s softness, Karin was wholeheartedly against it. It would make him seem soft, he worried, manipulatable. Instead, it’s made him seem more kind, trustworthy, honourable. Even when he’s slaughtering their parents, as long as he shelters and feeds the children, he’s a good person. People who know him, who watch him go through their villages like a thunderstorm, trust him. So Sasuke likes children.)

“Cute kid,” Sasuke remarks as the child leaves, following Karin into his tent.  
“Very. Thought you’d react better to him than Suigetsu.”  
“You know me too well, Karin.”

Long gone has any shame Sasuke once had about stripping in front of her, and he’s naked before she even has to say anything. Haircut day. Shave day. Wash day. He sits down on the stool beside the basin of warm water, and Karin begins to wet his hair.

“Cut or shave? This is your last chance to decide,” Karin says, because Sasuke’s only shaved his head in a close crop thrice before. Once, when he killed Orochimaru. Second, when he killed Itachi. Third, when he killed Madara. Sasuke has not had any such high-profile murders since then.  
“Shave. Fresh start.”

Karin is very skilled with a blade. He has seen her kill men with her knives in ingenious ways, he has seen her perform surgery armed with only a kunai, seen her shave her own legs without nicking the flesh once. Karin is the only one he trusts to hold a razor to his throat and take off only hair.

She lathers him up.

“Ten people are coming. Three as part of the actual diplomatic relations, seven others for protection,” Karin says, and starts to hack away at the length.  
“Do they really not trust us _that_ much?”  
“I’m pretty sure they just don’t trust you. Shikamaru Nara, Ino Yamanaka, Chouji Akimichi. I assume you know them?” She finishes half his head, the black locks falling to the ground gracelessly. They’re more greasy mats than soft hair, disgusting chunks of evidence of how little Sasuke cares about himself.  
“Basically.”  
“So I don’t need to tell you.” She starts to shave away the stubble, slowly going from his hairline down the curve of his skull, keeping half a centimetre, just because.

“And Juugo?”  
“He’s back. He’s cleaning up right now, but he’ll be with us in the war council.”  
“Great. What’s the Kabuto situation looking like, right now?”  
“I’m handling it. I’ll get his back against the wall, all you have to do is kill him.”

Sasuke smiles, looking at himself in the mirror, brushing his hand across the stubble. His head feels lighter, rid of the worries bogging him down. He never realises the weight of it until it is cut, the slow growth creeping over him so silently that he can’t even notice the change.

Karin is gentle as she lathers up his face and continues to shave his beard, cutting away the uneven stubble he’s collected over the past week.

“I don’t want to talk to them,” Sasuke finally tells her, broaching the subject between them.  
“I know you don’t, but you have to. It wouldn’t do well for our plans to start war so soon.”  
“I’m a _warlord,_ Karin, that’s what I fucking do.”  
“Well, I’m an advisor, but I’m sitting here cutting _your_ ratty hair. Sometimes, we all have to do shit that isn’t in our job description. Don’t be a brat.”  
“You know I don’t trust anyone but you, Karin,” he tells her, and his tone is light but his words are gravely serious.  
“Well, maybe if you trusted others a little bit more, I could find the time to do a hundred other more important things than this.”  
“Someone’s gotta be the eye candy of this army.”

If there is an eye candy, it’s certainly not Sasuke. He hit his growth spurt late, only starting to gain height and breadth when he turned fifteen. Sixteen, when he finally grew into the depth of his voice, commanding battalions against terrible monsters, cystic acne littering his cheeks. Only now have the scars begun to die down, the hormonal dandruff dissipating. Maybe in his youth, the potential of his looks could have been attractive. Now, seasoned like tough meat and scarred all over, he looks like someone with the lost potential.

There’s not much room for vanity in war.

“There?” he asks, washing the rest of his body down with a cloth and ice water, the lather of lard-soap strong smelling and sticky. “Am I presentable now?”  
“Barely,” Karin replies, because she, of course, looks impeccable.  


Karin has the kind of skin that is pale from lack of sun rather than its own colouring, it makes her look sheltered and expensive and rich. She looks like she’s never needed to work a day in her life, that she is so fortunate and kind that she was born into royalty. She doesn’t look like an orphan or an urchin, she doesn’t look like she’s ever done anything for herself at all.

Karin is in her advisor’s garb, a rich silk shirt with detailed embroidery that probably cost more to make than Sasuke’s own armour. She outshines him, and despite how much larger than her he is, she is easily the most commanding in the room. Her intelligence seeps from her pores, like she can’t turn it off. Not like Sasuke, who has to try to seem commanding, who had to practice being a good leader. Karin would have been a better lord, but she never wanted to be that. Sasuke’s much better at war.

“Fine,” Karin gives him one last once-over when Sasuke has finished dressing in what she laid out, checking her notes on her tablet before passing it over to him. Her itineraries are tight, clearly written and very detailed. Sasuke only reads the points underlined in red. That’s all Karin expects of him.

“No war, try to establish trade routes, don’t antagonise the guests. Got it.”  
“Do you?” Karin asks, more mocking than concerned because she’s a bitch who doesn’t trust him, “Do you really?”

“We really shouldn’t keep them waiting,” Juugo pokes his head in from the gap in the tent, his mouth twisted into a worried little pinched sort of look.  
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Sasuke sighs, handing Karin back her tablet and leaving the safety of his tent to make his way to the war rooms.

 

The war rooms are two large tents connected together, plusher than even Sasuke’s own private ger. The outside of it has tassels from the embroidery swaying in the wind bedside the bells and chimes hanging from the lip of the roof. There’s even a mat laid down outside the ger, pristine compared to the grime of the rest of the camp. While other gers of the army lean towards austere creams and beiges, the war rooms are dyed a brilliant scarlet red. They’re obvious, flashy, and rarely used.

The bells chime as Sasuke enters, and most of the others in the room stand to attention. Here, he’s king. Even more than the battlefield, those who work with Sasuke on planning and execution seem to gain a greater level of respect for him. While in his troops there are some who may not care as much for their leader, there are none like that in the war rooms. (It’s a little bit of his own merit, and somewhat because of Karin’s involvement. But in Otokagure, what isn’t?)

Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji draw his attention quickly, the three of them sat as stiffly as the next upon his plush chairs that he reserves only for guests. He recognised them instantly, even though they’ve changed a lot, their essence remains the same. It’s weird, to see them, to talk to them again. He hasn’t had a proper conversation with them in nearly a decade. They feel like dead people, like he’s communing with spirits who should be long gone. But they aren’t: Sasuke just likes to think Konoha died when he left.

“Welcome,” he greets them, his warmest smile in firm place. “How are you liking my humble abode?”

The question is almost a joke: while it is his most luxurious tent, it’s still a fucking tent. It has nothing on a brick-and-mortar house, no sense of the stability or strength or protection that brings you. His most beautiful ger is nothing to wealthy Konoha elites like them, the cream of the crop of Konoha’s clans.

“It’s fine,” Shikamaru replies diplomatically, but his face is stone cold.  
“How did the travel treat you? I hope your ride wasn’t too difficult,” Sasuke continues, his silver tongue coached into being second nature, taught almost entirely from the Karin Uzumaki book of tricks and tips.  
“We ran,” Ino says, and she licks her lips but stays silent.

Sasuke sits down, and Juugo takes his place to Sasuke’s right. Karin sits on his left, and Suigetsu, as always, stands behind Sasuke, hands on the back of Sasuke’s chair. It’s easy, they slip into this pattern without even realising. It’s how they all feel most comfortable, Sasuke’s best friends curling around him in protection and support. Sasuke’s snakes, having tasted the air of the ger and deciding Sasuke was under no immediate threat, curl up a chair leg each and rest, draped over the chair’s arms.

“May your feet be steady and the road rise to meet you,” Sasuke echoes; an old Konoha saying for when a shinobi left for a mission.  
“We have no intention of leaving quite so soon,” Ino says, and if she didn’t look so tired and hateful, she would seem exasperated.  
“Clearly, you have been away from the village for too long,” Shikamaru mutters, and Sasuke doesn’t miss the way Choji clenches his teeth together. Shikamaru’s smart, but not necessarily the best at people. Choji’s got a high EQ, but not as terribly smart. Ino is a horrifying mix of the two.

Konoha really did take him seriously as a threat. That shouldn’t fill him with as much glee as it does.

“If you’re ready,” Karin interrupts, clearing her throat and passing Sasuke another copy of the notes. Ino gives her a smile, and Sasuke can’t read it, he doesn’t know what Ino is saying with this, but Karin seems to get the message.  
“Ah, come now,” Sasuke places his hand on her wrist, placating her, “You’re staying for at least three days, are you not? We don’t have to bother our guests right away with all this dreadful talk of peace and war. Too tiring, for an evening discussion. Please, join me for a cigar and a drink.”

Suigetsu presents Sasuke’s humidor; Juugo wastes no time with snipping the end and passing Sasuke one of his favourites, before anyone has a chance to respond. Sasuke has always loved being the first; whether it in rising from bed, or starting to drink.

“Water-made?” Shikamaru asks, suspicious of Sasuke, like he is worried Sasuke has tried to poison him. (Unlikely, Sasuke has never been afraid of a little public executionry.)  
“Of course,” Sasuke assures him, “Nothing but the best for my guests.”

Shikamaru takes one of the cigars, Ino wrinkles her nose in distaste, and Choji sighs.

“Do you need a light?” Sasuke asks, and before one of his men can present Shikamaru with one of Sasuke’s cheap hand-lighters, Shikamaru’s cigar is lit and he is already ensuring an even burn.  
“I have my own.”

They smoke in silence, staring each other down while a page pours them all a few fingers of whisky. Juugo joins them, but Suigetsu (naturally, as a bodyguard he can’t appear to get distracted) and Karin (unnaturally, she usually enjoys joining him; complaining when he tells her it’s a man’s hobby) do not. Sasuke doesn’t ask, but he thinks it’s part of her engineered power display. Having them, the core team of Sasuke’s little kingdom, act in unison is a way to establish dominance, apparently.

Sasuke leaves all the diplomacy up to her; she leaves all the battles to him. Their arrangement works well for the both of them.

Sasuke finally ashes the cigar into a lacquered tray, and raises his glass with his other hand, “To peace and prosperity,” he toasts. Ino gives him a wet-glossy smile, her bright white teeth looking more feral than fair. He doesn’t trust her, more than anyone else in this room. He feels Ino’s distaste with him, how much she dislikes him, the scent of her hatred floating through the air. Ino would rather see him dead than peace with Konoha, that Sasuke knows for sure.  
“To peace and prosperity,” Ino echoes, but she doesn’t drink from her glass, letting the whisky slosh out, carelessly onto the table.

“So,” Sasuke says, “Choji, how is your father? In good health, I hope.”  
“Yes,” Choji replies, after a pause. He clearly doesn’t want to speak. Only belatedly does Sasuke remember that Ino and Shikamaru’s fathers both perished in the war, only does Sasuke realise this when Karin kicks him sharply in the shin.  
“And what of Konoha? Any news?”  
“What do you care, Uchiha? Looking for ways to destroy us from within?” Ino says, her biting tone almost mocking, as she rises halfway out of her chair.

Sasuke stays firmly seated.

“Believe me, there is nothing I wish for more than a peaceful way to coexist. I worry that you have the wrong image of me. Truly, our goal here is to create a united nation so that our loyal citizens have the chance to be represented on a greater stage; as you know, the histories of places like Oto and Ame have been bloody and horrible. Our wish is to merely liberate people from the terror of uncertainty and weakness,” Sasuke explains, his tone even, as Karin digs her fingernails into Sasuke’s thigh. He stays calm.  
“And liberation comes through conquest, I presume?” Shikamaru asks, and he sounds almost amused. Maybe he’s toying with Sasuke, looking for holes in his account.  
“As with all radical changes,” Sasuke replies, sounding out every word slowly, to make sure it is correct, “there will be dissenters. However, if you were to approach anyone who now lives under my banner, you would find that life has become much more stable. Before, the common man had no one to defend him from large nations and armies. Now, he can rely on us to aid him. How is that a crime, to have peace of mind and to care for one’s family?”  
“Of course,” Shikamaru nods, the smoke escaping his mouth like a low stormcloud, falling out of his mouth in a slow stream, “of course.”

Sasuke hates diplomacy.

Juugo’s voice always sounds almost weak from disuse, strangely hoarse, though he spends most of his days commanding thousands of soldiers. It wavers as he speaks, like the voice of an old man, rather than a teenager. “I have always respected Sasuke’s judgement,” is what he prefaces what he is about to say, “however, the light is fading and soon it will be time to break for meals. We ought, probably, to begin some of the items upon our agenda. We wouldn’t want to waste your time.”  
Karin shoots him a soft smile, the kind of expression she never shows Sasuke. It’s too sweet for him, and she stopped looking at him like that long ago.

 

Patrolling his troops isn’t uncommon for Sasuke – he fights with these men, he likes to be accessible to them. How else can he expect them to watch his back, if they don’t know what it looks like? However, this time, they’re on foot. They can’t assess the cavalry with the Konoha nin, (who don’t even really understand the art of horseback war like the mountain-based tribes do), so they are visiting the shinobi-based foot soldiers.

All the men stand to attention when Sasuke walks out in front of them, either eager to impress him or worried they’re not impressive enough. Sasuke’s eyes flick to Karin as he tries to mimic her enigmatic smile, but his face isn’t meant for humour. It makes him feel ridiculous, and he falls back into his serious resting expression.

Juugo’s explaining the army to their guests, introducing them to men they may have worked with during the Fourth War and displaying nothing but hospitality. As Sasuke’s highest ranking general, Juugo is the best man to show off his army. As the man with the kindest reputation in Sasuke’s inner circle, he’s the only one of their four who ought to be talking.

Sasuke tunes out as he walks a little ways behind the main group, bringing up the rear of their party with Suigetsu. He prefers it, able to watch the Konoha nin as well as everything that’s happening on the field, as his men return to their performative training.

Sasuke doesn’t like letting others _see_ his army, but Karin has assured him this is the best way to guarantee peace. It makes them look like they’re angling for an allyship, like they’re selling themselves to Konoha as good people to rely on. As a strong force they would be better off _not_ trying to crush. This is both a display of strength and a sales pitch; it puts a bad taste in Sasuke’s mouth. He has always been someone who would rather _do_ than _say,_ and Karin knows this. (Karin wouldn’t make him do this if it wasn’t necessary. Surely, she wouldn’t.)

They’re nearly finished their tour when out of the corner of his eye he sees someone trip over their own two feet. Before he even registers what he’s doing, he catches her and helps her back up into a proper stance.

“You should watch your feet when turning,” he tells her, his voice soft as he clasps her shoulder.  
She doesn’t say anything, stammering apologies and thanks in equal turn.  
“Don’t worry about it. It happens to the best of us. Just be more careful about keeping your stances solid and strong: having a good foundation is the difference between living and dying,” he says, and he’s serious, but he tries to sound kind, so she doesn’t think he’s angry. He’s not, “Good work. Keep it up.”

When Sasuke turns back to their group, keeping up with long strides, he sees Shikamaru and Ino give him a strange look. He doesn’t know what to make of it.

 

The finale of the visit is a dinner, leagues fancier than anything Sasuke would have by himself. The Uchiha weren’t poor by any stretch of imagination, but they weren’t hugely extravagant, either. Sasuke’s family were always austere with their meals, finding piety through consumption, rather than action.

Karin has been organising it for days, multiple courses of the best foods Sasuke’s war-weary cooks can muster up. Suigetsu thinks it’s a waste of time, but he at least, understands its importance. Juugo has just complained about how ridiculous the whole display is; Sasuke can’t help but agree with his assessment.

The dinner is too intimate and far too grand for those in attendance, who were still worried their food was poisoned or the dance-floor booby trapped. There aren’t even really enough people to mill about, high ranking officers and exemplary soldiers conscripted to fill the ranks of attendees.

Sasuke only had to take a look at the temporary wooden floor nailed in place, the folding tables arranged into a horse-shoe, and the northern curries saturated with spices unfamiliar to the Konoha nin, to know that this dinner was to be a disaster. As an army, Sasuke’s lands are strong and proud. As a nation, Sasuke’s people are like a newborn foal, wandering from disaster to disaster.

Sasuke doesn’t care what Karin’s going to say about it. He’s got to get some air.

He ducks out through the hidden exit-way on the side of the tent, a cigarette already dangling from his mouth in preparation. He needs a fucking smoke or two ( _and_ a lot more liquor) before he can even _begin_ to unpack what is going on here. 

Sasuke really should’ve had a wager on Shikamaru already being there. It would’ve, at the very least, earnt him a little bit of cash.

“That Karin’s a bit of a firecracker, huh?” Shikamaru starts by saying, and it’s friendly enough that an uneducated bystander would think them acquaintances.  
“That, she is.”  
“Troublesome.  A woman like that will kill you one day.”  
“Oh, how I pray that day will come.”

Shikamaru shrugs, as if to say _good enough for me_ , and starts to pay more attention to his cigarette. Sasuke doesn’t like that, wants to continue the conversation if only to have a partner who wasn’t working for him. He loves everyone in Oto, that shouldn’t be contested, but he misses the feeling of not being someone’s whole world.

For when someone sees you as their god, he has discovered, as their saviour and their hope and their freedom and their reason for living; it begins to go to your head. Sasuke has never wanted to be that guy, who would think of himself as king, but part of him has begun to understand Orochimaru. When you fashion yourself into an icon, you can’t be surprised when people hold you up like one.

“Did you enjoy Otokagure?” Sasuke asks, congenial in every way he knows how to be, and desperately wishing Karin would let his snakes be here so they could wind themselves comfortingly around his legs.

“You have a… an army, for sure,” Shikamaru says, and he sighs and flicks his cigarette butt into the ground, “Can we cut the bullshit, Sasuke?”  
Sasuke shrugs, not wanting to have anything Shikamaru can hold him to, but curious to see what Shikamaru wants to say.  
“Is this what you left the Leaf for?”  
“No.”  
“You killed Orochimaru, had you come back, we probably could have spun it into something good.”  
“My work wasn’t done.”  
“What was your work, then? You wanted to hurt the Leaf? Is this some sort of elaborate revenge plot?”

Sasuke counts his inhale and exhale, a slow one-two-three, before he lets himself even think about what he’s going to say. He can’t afford to be too candid, but he wants to get something through to Konoha. “Your problem, Konoha as a whole, is that you think this is about _you._ I understand that me, and my land and my people, are all a valuable resource. I know that, and I know Konoha thinks this,” he gestures to the dark stretch of gers fanning out in front of them, “could’ve been _hers,_ had she just done something differently. That’s not true. _This_ is because _I_ want it, and I took it for myself. _This_ is because people are sick and tired of the large villages running over them and treating them like trash. This isn’t about Danzo, or the Third, or Itachi, or Kakashi. It’s not about you and me. It’s about people being angry, and people wanting better for their families.”  
“Is it, Sasuke?” Shikamaru asks, staring him down like he wants to ask so much more. Like he doesn’t honestly believe Sasuke has the people’s interests at heart.

Shikamaru’s no fool, he won’t believe Sasuke’s spin.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Shikamaru says, and turns and enters the ger again, leaving Sasuke outside in the cold, holding what’s left of a half-smoked cigarette.

 

“I’m so fucking glad that’s over,” Sasuke sighs, and Juugo can’t help but smile.  
“It was necessary, hopefully Konoha will be more hesitant before trying to interfere in our business again.”  
“That doesn’t mean I enjoy _doing_ it.”

They’re lying on the grass of a training field, sweat-sticky and exhausted after a long day of drills and sparring. Suigetsu is the only one of them on high alert, because he doesn’t ever trust Sasuke’s other bodyguards. Suigetsu is always overly concerned about Sasuke’s health and safety, and Sasuke’s assurances that he is _perfectly_ able to defend himself are not enough to dissuade his anxiety.

“Your control over the Susano’o is getting better, Sasuke,” Juugo remarks, sitting up slowly to start to put his armour back on. They both need a shower, the spring heat starting to get to them, but Sasuke doesn’t like walking through the camp without his armour on. He’s got a rule, about his council looking professional at all times. It’s a distancing tactic, or something; Karin’s tried to psychoanalyse it but Sasuke never listens. If people only see you as a leader, they only think about you as a leader. You’re not a person, anymore, not if you’re unrelatable and unreachable. It’s the best way Sasuke knows of inspiring loyalty. People fear betraying a god. People love knowing a god is there.

Sasuke lays down for moments more, waiting for Juugo to be ready before he starts to get dressed as well. “I’m getting better at the time/space ninjutsu as well. My eyes are only feeling a little bit strained.”  
Suigetsu looks alarmed, probably worried that Karin’s going to be on his ass for not stopping Sasuke from hurting himself, “Fuck, dude, you can’t keep doing that if it’s going to-”  
“It won’t blind me,” Sasuke cuts him off before he gives himself a stomach ulcer, “I’ll be fine. You really don’t have to worry so much about how I’m doing.”  
“It’s my _job,_ Sasuke,” Suigetsu grumbles, and it’s an old argument, their points never change.  
“You don’t _have_ to be my bodyguard,” Sasuke repeats, like he hasn’t said the same thing thousands of times before, “you _chose_ it.”

Suigetsu splutters some, and then doesn’t say anything, just lacing the sides of Sasuke’s chest plate together, like he has done, so many times before.

“Karin’s confident about a treaty with Konoha,” Juugo says, when they’ve started making their way back to Sasuke’s ger, “that should hopefully get Kabuto off our back, because I doubt he wants to do anything that would incite an early war. If Konoha decimates us, there won’t be much of anything to lead.”  
“Well, it is rather the point of having a kingdom to have subjects, is it not?” Sasuke smiles, but this subject is too touchy for any of them to joke about. They’ve all experienced war, the terror and the hardship and the marching and the waiting. The waiting is what kills soldiers, makes them scared and sloppy. The waiting to die, the waiting to live, the waiting to lose. Sasuke is sick of waiting.

“You shoulda killed him when you had the chance,” Suigetsu frowns, because out of the few things Sasuke’s ever done that Suigetsu doesn’t approve of, not killing Kabuto is number one on that list.  
“Yeah, well, I didn’t,” Sasuke snaps, and usually that’s enough to end this bullshit.  
“You’re so fuckin’ weird about that shit, y’know. You don’t mind killin’ all these other people, you’re used to killin’. Even back then, you coulda done it so easy. He’s a fuckin’ rat, but he ain’t strong like you are,” Suigetsu blunders on, and his faith in Sasuke is chokingly difficult to handle. It makes Sasuke gag, with unease and worry. Sasuke isn’t that much stronger than Kabuto. It wouldn’t be an easy fight.  
“I respect him. I don’t like to slaughter unnecessarily.”  
“The dude hates your fuckin’ _guts,”_ Suigetsu moans, and Juugo nods in the corner of Sasuke’s eye, “you shoulda just chidori’d him to bits, man. He wouldn’t’ve had the same… what’s the word? Uh…”  
“Hesitation?” Juugo supplies.  
“Yeah! Hesitation! That’s it.”

“Well. I didn’t. That’s fucking that,” Sasuke bites out, the words bitter in his mouth, and he unnecessarily uses his sharingan to warp back to his ger alone. He doesn’t want to talk about it anymore.


	2. a crafty rabbit strikes an eagle

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, Suigetsu will creep from his section of Sasuke’s ger into Sasuke’s bed, laying down beside him. They started this tradition in Oto, when it was Orochimaru’s domain, when there were a lot more things to be afraid of in the dark.

Suigetsu and Sasuke have always been close, sharing the pain of a lost clan and lost brothers, roles they desperately wanted to live up to. They had something the others didn’t, something they could commiserate over. They, unlike Juugo, unlike even Karin; had something tangible to miss.

Suigetsu is a lot of things: sensible, battle-hardened, uneducated, kind, thoughtful, loyal, honest. Suigetsu is a lot of things Sasuke wishes he had, wishes he could be. Sometimes, he thinks, if he was more creative then he wouldn’t be doing this. If he could imagine the possibilities, really think about all the things that could and would go wrong, he wouldn’t do it. It’s sensible, to be able to reason out the future, to think your decisions through. Sasuke doesn’t have that, has never had enough common sense to floss his teeth with.

“I’m sorry,” Suigetsu whispers, and Sasuke doesn’t know if Suigetsu thinks he’s awake or not. He doesn’t know if Suigetsu is apologising for what he said, or for something else. Sasuke ought to be apologising. Sasuke’s the one who made him do all this, who put him through all this trouble, for what? More trouble, except now there are a whole new number of people out looking for all of their heads.   
“It’s okay,” Sasuke replies, even softer, and he rests his head in the crook of Suigetsu’s shoulder. It’s comfortable, there. Sasuke doesn’t apologise, not for anything, because he doesn’t know how Suigetsu would take it. He’s not man enough to realise his mistakes.

Once upon a time, they would have been something. They _could_ have been something, something special to each other. They were going to, once, Sasuke had hoped, anyways. He and Suigetsu had something that the other didn’t.

Nothing happened. Now, it’s too little, too late.

So Sasuke lies in the dark, closes his eyes and breathes in the sea-sweat-salty smell of Suigetsu’s hair, and tries to sleep.

 

“We have to do something about him,” Juugo says, and Sasuke slams his head against the table once again.  
“No fucking shit,” Suigetsu says, watching the entrance with one eye and Sasuke’s tantrum with the other.   
“He’ll just get worse,” Karin adds, not adding anything to the conversation that they didn’t already know, “it’s go time. From here on out, he’ll be zeroing in on his endgame.”

Sasuke _knows_ Kabuto is trying to oust him, he knows the coup is coming and there must be a reasonable amount of support for it to be trickling into Sasuke’s ears. There are people who don’t trust him, and there are people who mistake his kindness for weakness.

“Do I need to execute some motherfuckers with my own two fucking hands for the tiniest bit of respect around here?” Sasuke swears, and brushes past his friends to exit the tent.

He hears Karin swearing behind him and Suigetsu running to follow as he grabs his horse by the reins and climbs onto him bareback. Heihe doesn’t really mind, used to it after all this time. If Sasuke was in full armour it would be more of a problem, but for the purposes of surveying his troops, it’s fine. He’ll be fine.

He just needs to clear his head a bit, needs it to be just him and Heihe and Suigetsu silently stalking him, the way being alone always is nowadays. He never gets time alone anymore, and it’s hard, hard when he feels so lonely in a crowd of people following his every word. So, he rides.

The battalions train separately, everyone who runs the camp going in and out of the training soldiers. Cooks and cleaners and nurses and stablehands, everyone Sasuke needs to keep the momentum going. It’s a cool spring day, and which is the best kind of weather for motivation. The sun is out, the birds are singing, and it’s not yet hot enough to make wearing armour truly miserable. It should, by all accounts, be a good day.

“Colonel Ito,” Sasuke greets the man in charge, who is currently drilling his foot soldiers into decent fighters, “how goes it?”

Ito is a gruff man in his mid-thirties, starting to grey around the edges. He has patchy stubble covering his chin and a penchant for barking his commands like he’s mimicking wolves, which he probably is. Rumour around the camp says he grew up alone on the mountains, suckling from wild dogs and catching deer with his bare hands. Sasuke has met Ito’s wife, she’s a very nice woman. Ito is safe because he respects Sasuke, has worked with him for nearly four years without a word of complaint. Ito doesn’t believe in gods or legends, but he does trust results. As long as Sasuke keeps winning, Ito will be on his side.

“Fine,” Ito replies, not caring as Sasuke dismounts to stand by his side. The infantrymen are practicing combat drills, sparring against each other in groups, armed only with kunai and shuriken. The foundations, both Ito and Sasuke agree on, are the most important.   
“Do you mind if I take a look around?”   
“Not at all, sir.”

That’s all Sasuke needs. He starts to patrol through the rows, Suigetsu shadowing him and his snakes leading the way as he inspects everyone’s technique. Sloppiness gets you killed: Kakashi had beat _that_ into his brain, but Sasuke only truly learnt the meaning of that in Oto.

People tend to shut up when Sasuke walks by, although he doesn’t care much about their conversation. If they’re gossiping or shit-talking him, he doesn’t mind, and he finds the obvious silence much more offensive than anything anyone might happen to let him hear. He grew up in Oto, he’s heard the shit those bottomfeeders manage to dredge up from their asses. Nothing can surprise him anymore. He doesn’t _care_ if people talk shit about him, as long as they follow his orders without complaint. That’s not so much to ask, Sasuke thinks.

A girl beside him gets knocked down on her front, and she curses up a storm right in front of Sasuke. Sasuke almost thinks it’s funny. She doesn’t realise he’s there, and when she sticks a hand out to get someone to help her up, Sasuke takes it. It’s the same girl a before, the one from the Konoha visit. She seems like a hospital bill waiting to happen.

“Thanks man,” she huffs and straightens, and Sasuke can see when she registers that it’s _him,_ instead of one of her fellow battalion. “I’m so sorry sir,” she gasps, pulling her hand away like Sasuke is a hot saucepan, ready to boil over, “I am so sorry for all the disrespect, my greatest apologies –“

Sasuke stares blankly at her for a minute, unsure of what to say, but then he realises his silence is only making her more nervous.

“Oh! Don’t apologise, it happens to all of us,” he tries, and when she visibly relaxes he knows that was the right thing to say. Good. Fuck. “You should try to be a little more careful, though. I can’t catch you every time you fall.”  
She flushes and stammers another apology, but Sasuke isn’t interested in hearing it.   
“Just keep up the training, and relax a little. Smoke a little weed in your off time. I don’t care. Half your problem is you’re too tense. Okay? What’s your name?”   
“N-Naegi, Naegi Yuta, sir.”  
“Keep up the good work, N-Naegi Naegi Yuta,” he replies, and pats her stiffly on the arm. He’s trying.

She’s too shellshocked to respond as he walks away, waving at her and her sparring partner.

 

Sasuke feels sick. He doesn’t know how to process this, not yet, because the realities of it are too horrific to imagine.

“He’s essentially waged a war without us,” Juugo spells it out for him, like Sasuke doesn’t know exactly what Kabuto leading a small group of Sasuke’s forces to slaughter one of Konoha’s outposts means.

“I want them found, and I want as many of them as possible captured and brought to me,” Sasuke says, and points at a page to send the message off to Sasuke’s commanders closer to the Konoha border. There’s only so far they can go, after all. Sasuke will find them. He has time. “Nakano, contact Konoha and explain the situation. More fucking peace talks, I don’t care. We want to avoid losing as many men as possible, I trust you to do whatever needs to happen to get the best ending. Juugo, try to ready the men as much as possible for the worst case scenario, without making it obvious to Konoha what we’re doing. Karin, I want you to find out where Kabuto is and what he is doing as soon as possible. I’m riding out in the morning.”

He leaves, because if he doesn’t he fears he’s _really_ going to vomit his lunch all over his war council, and that isn’t really the image he wants to project. He leaves, and Suigetsu follows him in his weird, half-concerned, half-apprehensive manner.

Sasuke manages to make it back to his rooms before he’s retching into a wine bucket, spitting into the melted ice. He’s a wreck, curled up on his hands and knees and crying without even realising what he’s doing. He’s in shock, he realises, he needs a blanket. He needs someone to care for him. Fuck. For the first time in forever, he misses Itachi.

Itachi would know what to make of this situation, he’d be able to piece out the horrors together and find Kabuto and convince Konoha to let him be. Itachi would be beloved by all, a better leader than Sasuke by leagues, someone inspiring and caring. Itachi wouldn’t let everyone down like this, wouldn’t let everyone down. Itachi wouldn’t, not like Sasuke has.

Suigetsu gently, hesitantly, wraps his arms around Sasuke’s shoulders; attempting a sort of soothing sound that sounded half like a cicada and half like a rusted-up water pump.   
“Sasuke. It’s okay, please don’t – I mean, you’re better than this. You’ll be great, I promise, you just have to deal with this, but it’s okay, you couldn’t control it, it’ll be fine, okay? Karin will find him, you know that bitch will do fucking anything to get him back, okay? Sasuke, please just –”

Sasuke’s hair grows like weeds. If he didn’t cut it regularly he would need to tie it up, and already it’s gone from a shorn-sheep look into having enough that it moves in the wind. In only a few days, his hair has tripled in length, long enough that Sasuke can sort of pull at it. He likes it better like that, likes being able to feel it, because long hair was an Uchiha trait. His father had shoulder-length hair, tended to it carefully every night. So did his mother, so did his brother. As a child, Sasuke’s chubby little fingers used to grab at it, play with it and pull at it until they winced and laughed and told him to stop. (Madara, the greatest Uchiha of them all, had hair down to the backs of his knees and tangled and spiky and old, years spent growing it all.) If an Uchiha’s greatness is measured by the length of his hair, Sasuke would let Karin cut it as often as she liked.

Sasuke finishes retching, happy in that moment that there was nothing in his face, and staggers upright, using Suigetsu as a crutch. “I need a drink, then we’ll pack and go to sleep. We ride at dawn.” He speaks like he hadn’t been crying, like he doesn’t still have snot and spit all over his face.

Suigetsu just stands back and nods, swallowing his emotions down and pretending nothing has happened, pretending like they’ve all done since everything changed, and leaves to prepare. Once upon a time, maybe something else would’ve happened.

Sasuke sits down on his bed, chokes down a glass of water, and breathes through his fingers.

 

Their southern camp is in disarray. It seems like without Sasuke directing the flow, everyone falls apart. He gave them pretty fucking simple orders, but no one can fucking follow them. It really goes to show that if you want something done, you have to do it yourself.

Sasuke doesn’t dismount, just takes his helmet off and slows down as he reaches the centre of the camp. Heihe goes as deathly still as Sasuke does, standing in the middle of the camp, proud and beautiful. He’s managed to be much cleaner than Sasuke is, despite them riding through puddles of mud and long grasses that tickled at Sasuke’s stirrups. Heihe is awesome in the classical sense of the word, a powerful beast with a mottled coat like the fall of shadow on silk. Heihe commands more respect than Sasuke does, sometimes.

Sasuke doesn’t say anything. He leans down, finds his flask, and takes small sips as he waits for the camp to go quiet. Sasuke has time, and he can wait for his generals to come meet him. As it is, it doesn’t appear as they were very busy anyway.

It only takes minutes before the first corporal is running towards him, looking seriously worried.   
“Sir! We didn’t think you would be coming so soon!” the guys pants, and Sasuke would be sympathetic if they weren’t meant to be ready for his arrival at all times.   
“I rode hard,” Sasuke replies, and the corporal flinches at how flat Sasuke’s tone is.

This corporal is probably about twenty-five, newly enough promoted that he looks visibly green. That’s why he was chosen to greet Sasuke, the newbies always getting the shittiest jobs. It makes Sasuke think of being a genin, having to weed gardens for experience. This corporal is nearly a decade older than Sasuke is, but according to the way he acts, an outsider wouldn’t have noticed it.

“Where’s the general?” Sasuke asks, growing impatient as the higher echelons haven’t made themselves noticed.   
“He said he’d meet you in the officials’ tent, I can lead you there, if you’d like?”  
“Where is he _now,_ corporal? I don’t have all day.”   
“Uh,” the corporal stammers, and that’s enough for Sasuke to roll his eyes and set Heihe off in a slow trot.

If his guide won’t tell him, he’ll find the fuck his own damn self.

“Where is he?” Sasuke demands again, for the last time, and the corporal caves.   
“He’s in his ger, sir, with the deputy – please don’t go there, sir –“ he begs, but Sasuke’s already off to find the missing general.

Sasuke’s got a fucking bone to pick with this incompetent dimwit.

It takes all of Sasuke’s self-control to not just storm into the ger, chidori in hand and without thinking of the consequences, but he manages to hold himself back from murdering a large section of his command team.

“What the fuck are you thinking?” Sasuke demands, staring down General Hirayama with the full force of his mangekyo. The general stammers in response, too weak-willed to respond to Sasuke properly. Sasuke has no time for excuses, anyway. He turns to Kobayashi, the deputy general, hoping that she has a little more sense.   
“Sir, we were about to meet you,” she replies, and even though her words are useless excuses, at least she has the baseline bravery to respond properly, “we –“

She doesn’t get to finish what she wanted to say, because Sasuke continues to bark out orders at a rapid pace. “Hirayama, you’re demoted to colonel, leave now. Kobayashi, you’re now general. Don’t disappoint me. You sort out the rest of the leadership positions. I’ll give you an hour, then I want a report on how you’re planning to find and capture the traitors, as well as all correspondence made with Konoha on this situation. Unless you want a fucking war on your hands, I would advise you to take this seriously.”

The whole ger stops to stare at him, mouths hanging open like they’re looking to catch flies. The incompetence of them all never stops astounding Sasuke.

“Well?” he asks, and everyone snaps to attention, “Get to it!”

The scramble of people to their places is satisfying, everyone scared straight. Sasuke doesn’t stay to watch them, much more interested in returning to Heihe.

“Let’s get you a bath, baby,” he whispers to his horse, and digs a few sugar cubes out of his pack to feed to him.

Suigetsu watches him with wide eyes and an unreadable expression. Sometimes, Suigetsu can be surprisingly difficult to figure out. Sasuke doesn’t like it when Suigetsu gives him this look, his face so haphazardly blank that it doesn’t seem like he’s trying to block Sasuke out. More that he just doesn’t understand.

“Did you have to do that?” Suigetsu asks, his voice low as they brush their horses down. Sasuke doesn’t want to talk about this, he just wants to rebraid Heihe’s mane and give him as thorough of a clean as he can. After that trip, Heihe is sweaty and muddy, his hooves all gunked up with the crap that collects in the grasslands and woods.   
“Do what?” Sasuke snaps back, scowling as he gets the pick and starts to clean Heihe’s shoes.

Suigetsu gives him a long, searching look, like he’s trying to find something deep within Sasuke to pull out. There’s nothing there, there’s nothing inside Sasuke. He’s a hot air balloon, full of nothing. He killed what whatever was inside him, and then tarred and feathered it just to make sure it was dead. Suigetsu doesn’t find what he was looking for.

He looks away, and follows Sasuke into picking clean his own horse’s shoes.

 

The plan is altogether, pretty fucking stupid. Sasuke isn’t just saying that because he hates peace talks, or even because, this time, Juugo and Karin can’t come and just say everything for him.

The plan Sasuke’s forces came up with, the best ideas they could think of, were to grovel for forgiveness and convince Konoha that Kabuto was a much larger threat than Sasuke is. Factually, it’s not true: Kabuto is a little worm who too advantage of Sasuke’s kindness, a mistake Sasuke will never make again. Logically, Konoha shouldn’t listen to them, it knows how deadly serious Sasuke is about his goals. Hopefully, Sasuke can get off his high horse for long enough to convince someone in Konoha to call off their men.

All in all, it’s not looking good for Oto.

The only breakthrough, the only one, is that Karin has managed to secure Sasuke a meeting with the Hokage, and the Hokage has agreed to meet outside of Konoha. (In terms of good news Sasuke has heard in his life, it’s very low down on the list.) Beggars can’t be choosers, so Sasuke goes, prepared to beg.  

“Kakashi!” Sasuke greets his old mentor, inviting the man to take a seat next across from him. It’s been a long time since he’s seen his teacher in the flesh, and it feels strange to now approach him as a sort of equal.   
Kakashi says nothing, taking his place. He still wears the stupid mask, even if he doesn’t have to cover his sharingan anymore. Sasuke hated it then, and he sure does hate it now. The secrecy behind Kakashi’s motives always irked Sasuke; through growing up, Sasuke’s feelings about him haven’t changed.

“Otokage,” Kakashi says, finally. The word is measured, none of the fondness that Kakashi once held for Sasuke. They’re playing that game, then.   
“Come now, you can call me Sasuke,” he tries again, but Naruto (of course he’s at Kakashi’s side, glaring) shakes his head slightly. Clearly this isn’t going to work. “Thank you for meeting with me, Hokage.”

Kakashi dips his head in acknowledgement, but stays silent.  
“Then, let me cut to the chase,” Sasuke fucking hates this game. “As I hope you understand from our correspondence, the attack on Konoha’s forces was not authorised by me, but was committed by a cell of rebels, acting under my banner, to implicate me.”  
“I’m sure you can understand why I do not believe this, Otokage. You are not even an ally of Konoha, and you ask me to believe you when you say that your army, which has been preparing for war with Konoha for years, has not begun it?”   
“What motive do I have to lie?” Sasuke asks, and as he says it, he realises it’s the wrong thing to say.   
“If we pardon you for this, we let you off the hook. That’s a free shot at _my people_ I have permitted you. Will you ask me to roll over, and just give you the village next?”  
“I assure you, Hokage, that I, nor my village, have any intention of harming Konoha.” A blatant lie, but it will have to do.   
“Of course. And your choice to _slaughter_ the interim hokage was nothing to do with harming Konoha.”   
“It was a personal vendetta, acted by Sasuke Uchiha as a private citizen, not by me as the Otokage,” Sasuke growls, his fists clenched under the table in anger and humiliation, “he was responsible for the death of my _clan,_ Kakashi. Or did they not tell you this, as Hokage? Do you still let innocent mothers and children die at the whim of your council?”

It was the wrong thing to say. Karin would’ve said something better, something different, something that would make Kakashi fall in love with her, put him around her little finger. She’s good at that, but Sasuke’s not. He’s only good at war.

Naruto clearly wants to say something, wants to jump up and tell him he’s wrong, defend his village, or something. He doesn’t speak, though, and that hurts Sasuke more than Kakashi’s silence ever could. Time, clearly, has taught Naruto how to bite his tongue.

If only Sasuke could learn the same lesson.

“Would you like to meet the prisoners, Kabuto’s ones, I mean?” Suigetsu asks, stammering nervously around the awkward silence. “The ones responsible for the attack, sir. I mean, they’re the ones who hurt your village. Not us.”

This really isn’t a time for an execution, and Sasuke almost wants to just give up. He’s ready now, Konoha, take him in for war crimes. He’ll go nicely, sign a fake confession, all that shit. It would probably save him a hundred headaches.

“We’ve captured some of the insurgents that Kabuto Yakushi, an ex-Oto ninja from back when Orochimaru was the Otokage, was responsible for instructing to commit an act against Konoha. We… _saved_ them for your visit,” Sasuke says. It is strange, to be so formal with Kakashi and Naruto. He doesn’t feel like he should. They were comrades, the last time they were together. Kakashi and Naruto thought him their comrade enough to trust him to defeat Madara with them.

Clearly, something had changed between them. Sasuke isn’t sure how the man he is now is different to the man he was then.

“I’m familiar with Yakushi,” Kakashi says at the same time that Naruto interjects.   
“What do you _mean_ you were _saving_ them? For what? Are you going to fucking _murder_ them?” he shouts, standing up so quickly his chair falls over behind him. He’s loud, like he always has been (it’s a surprise that he’s managed to stay quiet for so long), and Sasuke flinches.

He doesn’t dwell on why. He pretends that he didn’t.

“In Otogakure, high treason is a capital offence,” Sasuke says, as evenly as he possibly can.

He keeps his hands under the table so Kakashi doesn’t see them shake. Fuck.

“You’re the fucking _king,_ you can do whatever you _fucking_ like! Don’t pretend like you don’t _make the goddamn law!_ You expect me to act like you’re worth the air you breathe? When you’re just _killing people left and right,_ Sasuke!  I swear to fucking –“  
“ _Enough,_ Naruto,” Kakashi commands, and Naruto falls silent like a forest in the aftermath of a lightning strike.

Sasuke waves his hand. A page picks up the chair and offers it. Naruto sits down again. Shikamaru leans forward. Kakashi looks like nothing had even happened. Sasuke breathes, and breathes, and breathes.

Suigetsu puts his hand on Sasuke’s shoulder.

“We thought you might want to have your own men speak to them, and assess their motives, to put the idea that the attack was Otogakure’s at rest,” Sasuke tells them, swallowing only once through his words.

Naruto looks like he wants to say something, like he’s barely keeping the words from exploding out of his mouth. His cheeks go red, a little bit, the way they used to when Sasuke was better than him at training and he wanted to protest Kakashi’s praise. It’s both painfully familiar and such a distant memory to Sasuke. He hates that Naruto is here again.

Sasuke could handle everyone else but Naruto.

“Thank you, Otokage,” Kakashi says evenly, in a tone that lets Sasuke know there will be no executions today.  
“You might want to get a Yamanaka or Morino on them. Just to rest any doubts that we might have tampered with their memories,” Sasuke tells him, and had Karin been there she wouldn’t have let him say that.

Suigetsu’s probably biting the inside of his cheek, trying not to laugh. Sasuke’s teenage impunity is always something that sets him off.   
“As always, Otokage, your consideration is much appreciated,” Shikamaru says, his voice frozen over like a Northern lake.

No longer, really, does anyone in Konoha try to understand him. (Not like they tried to understand him when he _was_ a Konoha shinobi, either.) They don’t see him as Konoha anymore. Sasuke was, now he isn’t. Now he’s a traitor. He’s not someone making the best of what he has, someone who has been lied to time and time again, not a scared teenager looking for someone who _loves_ him, someone he can trust.

First and foremost, Sasuke is a propagator and profiteer of war. Before he is a man, before he is a student or a son or a boy; he is a bloodthirsty tyrant who drinks the blood of children.

 

The council takes a break, and Sasuke takes the opportunity to huddle with a cigarette out the back of the ger. It’s usually unpopulated, people looking the other way when they see a hint of Suigetsu’s large sword, but Konoha shinobi don’t know that.

It hasn’t rained recently, and the ground isn’t muddy. Thank the ancestors, because Sasuke just wants to sit down and put his head between his knees for ten minutes before he has to think about the next step.

Suigetsu’s good at that, too. He thinks he’s stupid, but that’s not necessarily true: he’s not stupid, he’s just never been as booksmart as Karin, Juugo, or even Sasuke. Suigetsu’s perceptive in other ways, easily able to read people’s emotions and the situation, even if he still ends up putting his foot in his mouth anyway. Suigetsu thinks of himself as hired muscle, good for nothing but his body.

Sasuke doesn’t see that, but he hasn’t told Suigetsu. Sometimes he thinks about it, he _dreams_ about being able to repair their relationship, being able to go back to who they used to be. Back to when Suigetsu didn’t feel so hopelessly lesser than Sasuke and before Sasuke knew that anyone he cared about would just have a target painted on their back in Uchiha clan colours.

“Sorry,” Suigetsu apologises, “I didn’t mean to make trouble for you back there.”  
“You don’t have to be sorry,” Sasuke says, and he means it, “you stopped me from challenging the Hokage to a duel over my honour.”  
Suigetsu gives him a smile, one of the only ones Suigetsu knows how to do. It’s huge and kind, even behind the filed-down shark teeth of Suigetsu’s mouth. It always cheers Sasuke up. “Oh,” Suigetsu preens, “heh. Cool.”  
“Yeah,” Sasuke agrees, offering Suigetsu a drag of his cigarette, “cool.”

Suigetsu mostly gave up smoking when he became Sasuke’s bodyguard. One day they were all using together, passing the days in a haze of smoke and drink and drugs. The next, everyone around Sasuke was sober and Sasuke was the only one falling again and again. Sasuke feels bad,  like he’s pushing Suigetsu to do something he wants to, but Suigetsu always gladly accepts. Even if he doesn’t smoke or drink without Sasuke, he always has a little bit of whatever’s Sasuke’s having.

It makes Sasuke feel a little less like a leper, and Sasuke doesn’t even know if Suigetsu knows that’s what he’s doing.

“Sasuke,” Naruto interrupts them, looking both like he’d found what he was looking for and a rabbit caught in a trap.

Suigetsu passes the cigarette back to Sasuke, hefts his sword menacingly, and says, “Sir, I have to ask you to leave. This is a private area of the camp.” (That’s bullshit, it’s the fucking back end of a tent. No one cares enough about this spot to designate it private or not.)

Sasuke’s caught Suigetsu practicing saying shit like that, in front of mirrors or while they’re riding. It’s sweet, the way Suigetsu tries so fucking hard to make Sasuke proud of him. It makes Sasuke feel shit, seeing how little he tries in comparison.

“We’re old friends, please can I talk to him? I won’t take too long,” Naruto says, and he looks like he’s almost pleading with Suigetsu. It surprises Sasuke, that Naruto sounds so desperate, like he genuinely wants Sasuke back. It’s kind. Sasuke missed Naruto, the way he’s always so happy and cheerful. The way he sounds like he hasn’t had to fight for his life. The way the world hasn’t made him worn and jaded like everyone else Sasuke knows.   
“It’s fine, Sui,” Sasuke sighs, and scratches his face before looking up at Naruto, properly meeting his eyes, “What do you want?”  
Naruto looks tetchy, nervous at being alone with Sasuke and his bodyguard. He’s probably going against Kakashi’s express orders, knowing the two of them. “I was hoping we could speak… alone.”  
“Anything you want to say to me, you can say in front of Suigetsu,” Sasuke says, gruff and flat. Suigetsu hasn’t left his side in years. For fuck’s sake, Suigetsu’s watched him shit in a hole in the forest. There’s nothing about Sasuke that Suigetsu doesn’t know in explicit detail.   
“Well,” Naruto says, sighing, “Sasuke, we miss you. You can come back to Konoha, your friends still want you back. You don’t have to keep doing this.”  
“You knew me when I was _thirteen,_ Naruto. You’re not a better friend to me than all the others. You don’t _get_ that I’m not trying to spite Konoha for the Uchiha clan or whatever you think I’m doing this for,” he says, exasperated, “I’m an _adult!_ This is my life, Uzumaki. I’m not doing this specifically to hurt you or whatever you think I’m doing it for. You can’t ask me to leave my friends for you.”

“Sasuke,” Naruto says, but he doesn’t follow it with anything.

“Otogakure won’t stop being an issue because I’m not here, Naruto,” Sasuke says, his voice hard, “It’ll just be worse. You tell Kakashi that for me.”  
“You got anything else you wanna say t’the boss?” Suigetsu asks, moving closer to Sasuke, almost blocking Sasuke’s view of Naruto with his flat ass.   
“Sasuke,” Naruto repeats, more urgently, but he still doesn’t follow it with anything. Sasuke doesn’t know what Naruto wants him to say.   
“Naruto, save your breath for the talks, okay? You can’t save me. There’s nothing to save me from.”

Naruto stares at him, and Sasuke stares back. It’s so easy to just fucking watch, to keep watching each other and thinking nothing’ll happen. Sasuke doesn’t know Naruto, doesn’t know him anymore. They haven’t talked for years, and even when they were still friends, they weren’t exactly confidantes. So they’re not friends, even if Naruto thinks they are. He’s always been borderline delusional, thinking he can solve every problem with friendship and light sparring. Like it’s _easy,_ like people will just let him get his own way all the time.

“We’re not friends, Naruto,” Sasuke says, and it’s almost kind. He wants to let Naruto down gently. He owes him this much.  
“Why can’t we be?” Naruto asks, exasperated. Sasuke can see it from his point of view: he’s trying so hard, wants it so much, but no one is helping him. No one wants him.   
“I think that’s a better question for Kakashi, Naruto,” Sasuke says, quiet. It feels like something is ending, even though there’s nothing _to_ end.

This is where Naruto gives up on him. This is where Sasuke eschews his last bond to Konoha.

This is where Suigetsu gives him an unreadable look, pitying yet proud, something possessive in between the two, because Suigetsu would never want Sasuke to leave him. That’s the most selfish thing Suigetsu does, wanting Sasuke. He’s never asked for anything else, but to be Sasuke’s right hand man.

 

Kakashi chooses which of the prisoners to take back to Konoha, and he leaves two behind for Sasuke. With Kakashi and Naruto and Shikamaru watching his every move, Sasuke calls for his entire camp to meet around the execution block that was roughly built just for this purpose. Contrary to Naruto’s beliefs, Sasuke doesn’t execute so many people that he warrants having a specially made stage just to behead people on.

Sasuke drags the prisoner from the holding cell by his hair, forcing him to stoop as he is dragged behind Sasuke. He stumbles, Sasuke’s pace punishing to keep up with when his feet are bound, but Sasuke has no sympathy. Traitors who have the gall to get caught are even worse than traitors themselves.

He’s pulled onto the podium, yelling and screaming for mercy or anything the entire way, but his screams are lost in the chatter of Sasuke’s men. Executions are not a sombre event.

People throw things, hurling insults to the man’s character and actions, chanting and stomping their feet. It is an event, to kill a traitor. No one in Otogakure takes treason lightly, and even fewer excuse fools who let themselves get caught for their crimes. You’d have to be an idiot to betray Sasuke without having a plan of escape, but this man clearly is one.

Sasuke doesn’t give the man any last words. His blade takes the man’s head off in one swipe, a rush of blood covering Sasuke’s cream formal clothes. Sasuke doesn’t care as he holds the head up high, turning slowly to show it off to the crowd, delighting in their cheers and screams and jeering smiles as they erupt into applause.

He is their hero, their leader. Power is the most valued resource in Otogakure, and Sasuke has it in excess. The people respect that.

Let this be a lesson, then, to Konoha and to his people and to Kabuto. Let this be a lesson that Sasuke will not be stopped, will not be silenced, and will not bow down to fear. May their ancestors help them learn from this.


	3. when one man is ready to risk his life, ten thousand men cannot defeat him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait guys! I have just been busy with life and shit, y'know how it is. This is the second to last chapter, however I do have a sequel planned :~). I just wanted to keep this fic's chapters at 4. Because, y'know, symbolism. ;)

He’s tired. He’s so fucking tired from running between camps, showing off and fucking debating with all the cocksuckers people tell him he’s got to argue with. He’s never been a very charismatic or patient person, and though his pragmatic core tells him to play nice, there’s a large part of him that just wants to throw in the towel and go to war. Things are so much more simple on the battlefield.   
Heihe, the poor horse, doesn’t deserve having Sasuke’s frustrations taken out on him. He’s done nothing wrong. Even so, these punishing rides are the only real time Sasuke has to himself, when the only thing he’s got to worry about is the ground underneath him and the occasional assassin.   
Heihe is trustworthy, he would never betray Sasuke. Sasuke trusts his horse with his life, much more than he trusts the thousands of subordinates he has to keep under an iron thumb. Horses can’t hold kunai; ergo, they cannot stab him in the back.   
He rides, his hands fisting Heihe’s reins and his chest pressed close to the back of Heihe’s neck, galloping through the drylands at a breakneck pace. The frosts are starting, soon this land will be too icy to traverse like this, which means that Sasuke has to speed up and beat the seasons. When the first snow falls, Sasuke will be halfway to Kabuto. When the winter melts, Sasuke will have proved himself worthy.   
Sasuke’s tired, but he doesn’t need energy to finish this. He just needs drive.

  
  
Riding always makes Sasuke sleep like a baby, curled up in his blankets by his horse. Heihe is hot blooded, just like Sasuke, and together they prevent as much heat loss as they possibly can.   
Up in the north of Otogakure, it gets cold at night. The pre-winter winds hurry over the flat grasslands, the lack of cover lets them whip and whirl into a biting chill. Out here, it’s all flat ground, a little tough and rocky but mostly just long grasses that grow up to Sasuke’s knees. Snakes love to hide in the grass up here, adders and vipers that wait for you to step close and then sink their teeth in your heel. It’s one of the few places that really feel like home.   
Sasuke misses Konoha’s trees. The winds weren’t as blustery there, the terrain full of hills and mountains and trees that blocked gales and redirected lightning. There was cover there, places to hide and ways to avoid danger. He feels exposed in the high grasslands of Oto, vulnerable in ways he never did when he was in Konoha.   
Suigetsu sleeps on the other side of camp, three other soldiers in between them. Sasuke doesn’t miss his presence.   
While he sleeps like the dead, getting to sleep is a whole other issue: Sasuke’s so buzzed from the day’s ride and the jitters of what he’s about to do that he can’t relax his mind enough to sleep. If they were alone, Suigetsu would bring him a cigarette and a whisky and they’d talk until Sasuke’s eyelids started to close, but they aren’t. There’s a whole party of other soldiers around them and all eyes are on Sasuke. (Karin makes even Sasuke’s freedom feel suffocating.)   
He used to wander off at night, hiding himself up trees or by streams. Juugo would find him curled up in the morning, river mud caked through his hair. He was well rested on those nights, like he could pretend, just for a moment, that everything was like it was before Shisui died. (He can’t now. He can’t worry them.)   
“You’re thinking too much,” Fanchan tells him, his frill laying flat against Sasuke’s hands. It’s cold in the snake-place, apparently; Sasuke’s body heat is just like a sunning-rock.   
“You should think less about other things and think more about feeding us rats,” Yanjing agrees, her tongue flicking in a way that Sasuke has learned to translate into a smile.   
“I think that when you think too much, we should bite you,” Fanchan says, “and my sister agrees.”   
“Fuck you,” Sasuke says, but he doesn’t protest when they curl up around his neck.   
“You don’t want to add bestiality to your list of accomplishments, do you?” Yanjing hisses in a way that Sasuke is very suspicious is her laughing.   
“This is why people don’t trust snake summons, you know? You guys are wankers.”   
“We don’t have sex for recreation,” Fanchan tells him.   
“You know very well that I don’t either,” Sasuke spits back.   
They both laugh at him, their frills fluttering against the soft skin of his neck, and he pretends to fall asleep.

  
  
Juugo finds him, awake, smoking, and with two bleeding snake bite wounds on his wrists.   
“You should be glad I found you, and not Karin,” is the only thing he says to Sasuke, passing him an apple.   
“Oh, thank you, kind and humble Juugo, for sparing me from her dastardly therapeutic wrath,” Sasuke flips him off, sucking down on his cigarette with more vigour than before.   
“You’re welcome,” Juugo replies, because he likes to pretend that he doesn’t know when Sasuke’s in a mood.   
“I’m fucking sick of her! I wish she’d hop off my fucking dick for once. She’s annoying and mean and controlling and a complete and utter hag! I hate the way she writes all these reports and texts me twenty-four seven and is always praying at the stupidest times! I swear to the fucking heavens that if I ever see that stupid necklace again I’ll strangle her!”   
“Praying at stupid times, like on her religion’s holy days and when you’re about to go into battle?”   
“Exactly!”   
“I feel like I needn’t explain to you why your logic is flawed.”   
“Oh, look at me, I’m Juugo and I use the word needn’t and cry myself to sleep at night because my mother never loved me!”   
“I also feel like you ought not to judge Karin for her behaviours until you examine your own.”   
“I’m fucking sick of you too. All of you. I wish you’d just go away! You don’t know how fucking difficult it is to be me and be expected to do all this shit for what? My old friends to hate me and to worry I’m gonna be killed every single day and to never have a moment’s peace?”   
“Are you finished with your tantrum yet?”   
“Fuck you!”   
“What’s happening now?” Suigetsu asks, walking up to them from the direction of the camp. Karin probably sent him.   
“Sasuke’s having a hissy.”   
“I am not having a hissy!”   
“If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, throws around shitty insults like a duck...” Suigetsu says, patting Sasuke condescendingly on the shoulder. Sasuke shouldn’t’ve become this close to him.   
“Go fuck yourself,” Sasuke spits, flicking his cigarette butt at Suigetsu’s feet. Suigetsu is used to Sasuke’s moods - it’s not the worst thing Sasuke’s ever done to him.   
“Would love to, but we don’t have time. We have to get a move on with our day, or Karin’ll have my balls.”   
“She probably already does,” Sasuke says, the barb aiming to hurt, “You’re fucking her behind my back, aren’t you?”   
Suigetsu doesn’t say anything, and neither does Juugo. They both just stare him down for a minute, before Suigetsu stalks off, leading the way to Karin's tent.   
“You’re a cock,” Juugo tells him, as placid as always, like he’s trying to piss Sasuke off. (It’s working.)   
“Fuck you,” Sasuke tells him, but it doesn’t have the same heat to it. The moment’s passed, and now he’s got to go explain himself.

  
  
Sasuke doesn’t apologise, and Suigetsu doesn’t ask for one. In fact, Suigetsu doesn’t talk to him much at all. Suigetsu doesn’t say anything, doesn’t respond verbally to Sasuke’s demands, or at all to his jabs.   
If he was someone different, if he was not himself and not the leader of an emerging nation and someone who was allowed to care about others, maybe he’d say something, something real and heartfelt. (He doesn’t.)   
(He drinks.)   
And that is how he ends up crying his heart out to his horse, drunk off his face and his stomach hurting. He can’t summon his snakes for company, no matter how much he wants to. The snakes hate alcohol, can’t understand why Sasuke would want to put poison that isn’t theirs into his bloodstream.   
Animals don’t understand human problems very well, Sasuke has found out. (Although, neither do humans.)   
“Heihe,” he says to the horse, “you’re a shit conversationalist.”   
The horse doesn’t respond. He’s as useless as everyone else around Sasuke. Sasuke’s too drunk to be frustrated, and Heihe knows Sasuke well enough to not be concerned.   
If the horse could speak, he’d probably say you’re killing yourself, Sasuke, you idiot. You’re lucky everyone else cares about your well being, because you certainly don’t. You don’t deserve any of what you have, and one day everyone will discover that. Someday everyone will be tired of you, and then who will you have? An aging horse and a handful of snakes.   
It’s a good thing too, then, that Heihe can’t talk. Heihe is mean, a brute of a horse, at least the Heihe who speaks to Sasuke when Sasuke gets like this.   
Sasuke repays Heihe for his advice by puking outside his stall.

  
  
“You foolish little boy,” Karin hisses to Sasuke when she drags him by his ear out of Heihe’s stall. The son of a bitch useless horse doesn’t even whinny at this abuse of his master. Fucking traitorous soon-to-be-gelding.   
“Slower…” he groans, the pounding of his head and lurching of his stomach punishment enough for whatever transgression he may have done whilst shitfaced.   
Karin doesn’t stop even when Sasuke vomits all over his front, spittle and bile and chunks of last night’s dinner running down his chin and chest. She still doesn’t stop. She just slows.   
“You’re a piece of work, Uchiha,” and his name sounds like a curse in her mouth, like a new swear-word she’s had to get Suigetsu to stop screaming at troops, “a piece of bloody work.”   
And as soon as they cross the threshold into Sasuke’s tent, she slaps him, right across the face through streaks of vomit and sweat and spit. She slaps him, bare and back handed, and it fucking hurts.   
“Ow!”   
“I’ve seen you get stabbed in the stomach, Uchiha, you’re just a big baby.”   
He splutters, but he doesn’t have a rebuttal to that.   
Then she slaps him again.   
“What was that one for?” he shouts, surprised that she’d go in for a second hit. She hates clichés.   
“For fun. To get the message into your thick skull. Because you constantly ignore me when I’m trying to fucking help you. To punish you for drinking yourself sick last night and sleeping in your horse’s stall. For that shit you said to Sui - don’t think I didn’t hear about that. Take your pick.”   
He doesn’t have anything to say to her about that, either, so he says nothing.   
“Get in the bath,” she orders. He does. She dumps a bucket of ice-cold water over him, mercilessly scrubbing his chest down with a thick-bristled brush, digging into his skin until it hurts. He doesn’t say anything.   
Karin’s faith is all about repentance, about apology in the form of self-flagellation. This is what she knows, pain, hurting, drawing it out from others until they truly are sorry. It’s familiar to Sasuke, because this is Karin and he knows her, even if he doesn’t know her god. Karin's faith seems attractive to Sasuke, sometimes, but then he remembers her god is all-knowing and all loving.   
Sasuke doesn't really have a god, or any assortment of gods he truly believes in. All he knows is that he either is being punished for what he did, or will be punished for what he is doing.

  
  
"What is your problem, Uchiha?" Karin asks, and even the tone of her voice sounds confused. She's part angry, part humiliated, part concerned as a mother, concerned as a friend, concerned as an advisor. Frustrated. Upset. Grieving. Karin is grieving for the loss of the boy she once knew as Sasuke Uchiha, even though she had a hand in every single reason why he grew up.   
"Oh, man, I don't know," Sasuke snarks back, his own tone a lot more hostile than a sopping wet adult man sitting down on the floor of a ger, naked, should be. He feels inadequate under her gaze. She has the eyes of truth, unlike Sasuke's own eyes of lies. Karin always brings him back to who he is. "Traumatic childhood. Pressure of war. Was having a bad day. Bad week. Bad life. Take your pick."   
"Oh, shut the fuck up, Sasuke. Boo hoo hoo, I was a child soldier, I was forced to kill my brother, aww poor little Uchiha. Sucks for you, soldier. Half those people out there, killing themselves for you, have the same fucking sob story. Maybe worse. That doesn't stop them from doing their fucking jobs, Uchiha. God forbid everything isn't about you, though, because we know you're the only one who matters in this whole wide world, isn't that right?"   
He doesn't reply to her. He sits and stares at the fingernails on his left hand, while biting the thumbnail of his right hand, and he ignores everything she says. Karin would say he's sulking, he says he's electing to not talk for personal reasons.   
She sighs, goes and grabs a waterskin, and then hands it to him. "You're hungover, you idiot."   
"You're a bitch."   
"Tell me something new."   
"Fine," he snaps, suddenly, and takes a swig of water, "I'm going to find and kill Kabuto."   
"No you're not."   
"Yes, I am."   
"No, you're going to stay where you fucking are and do what I tell you to."   
"It would kill two birds with one stone."   
"You're actually fucking stupid if you really think Kabuto is the diplomatic issue at hand. Even if we brought Kabuto's head to the Leaf on a platter, you think they'd believe us? They think you're a monster. They think I'm a monster. Kabuto is small fry. He's not intelligent enough to pose a real threat to us."   
"You shouldn't underestimate him."   
"I'm estimating him perfectly fine. You don't know him like I do. I worked with him for years, Sasuke. I know exactly what cloth he is cut from. While you were off, gallivanting and doing shit for Orochimaru, I was the one doing the real dirty work. You think you're so bad for capturing prisoners? I was the one who tortured them. Don't, for a second, Uchiha, think you're the real monster of Otogakure. That title will always belong to me."

“Wasn’t killing him the fucking plan all along?”  
“Are you _dense?_ He wasn’t the original plan. He wasn’t even plan G. Kabuto is an unfortunate complication, and you’re so focused on him you can’t see the real issue.”

“And what, Karin, may you grace me with your infinite wisdom, is the real issue?”  
“Your lands? Keeping other villages out? Consolidating power? Making sure you subjects are actually loyal to you? All of which will not be helped by you abandoning the front lines to go on a wild goose chase around the world, searching for someone who doesn’t matter!”

“He matters enough for you to be looking for.”  
“He matters to me, that’s my fucking _job,_ Sasuke. My job is to take care of all the issues that shouldn’t matter to you, that’s what being an advisor _is._ ”

“I think being an advisor is _advising,_ not running the country from behind the scenes.”   
“What the fuck are you saying?”   
“I’m _saying,_ if you want to kill me and take over, feel free. Any fucking time, Karin, you pencil in when’s convenient for you.”

“What is _wrong_ with you, Sasuke?”

“I’m saying that I _know_ I’m just your puppet. You treat me like I’m so fucking stupid that will I blindly follow everything you say to the letter, like a little automatron that you can program to do what you want!”   
Karin stares at him, cold and angry, and she shakes her head. “You really can’t get your head out of your own ass for five seconds, can you? Maybe, just maybe, people help you because they _care_ about you, Sasuke. But God forbid that’d be the case.”

  
  
Suigetsu is the most silent Sasuke has ever seen him. He's come a long way from being the lily-livered chatterbox of their teenage years, but he's always been talkative. It's one of the reasons Sasuke likes him so much, that he's funny.   
The silence stretches like Manda's gaping maw, and Sasuke feels like he's going to be swallowed whole. Sasuke wishes he could be.   
Suigetsu doesn't leave his side - in fact, he's more attentive than he usually is. But the air between them has changed. Sasuke thinks they're no longer friends. Now, it's just Sasuke and his bodyguard. It's either punishment or sacrifice, and Sasuke can't decide which.   
He fills the ache of loneliness with more engagement with his troops, he sits around and breaks bread and mingles with everyone from his generals to his foot soldiers, he learns people's names and greets them before drills and training. He gives as much advice as he can on all sorts of matters, everything from kekkei genkai to relationships, and people care. People listen.   
He realises, all of a sudden, that his people really do support him. This whole thing wasn't just a lie to fool Konoha. His people do trust him, and his kindnesses haven’t just been for show. The more Sasuke thinks about leaving his people, the more it upsets him.   
  
He says as much to Juugo.

“Sasuke,” Juugo says, in all honesty and confidence, “you are the stupidest smart person I have ever met.”

“Fuck off. I won’t talk if you’re going to be just like the others.”

“I say this with the best of intentions, I really do. You’re an idiot.”

“Thank you, really. This makes me feel so great about myself. Juugo, what would I do without you?”  
“Drink yourself to death,” Juugo answers without a hint of humour. It makes Sasuke’s blood thicken in his veins, freezing until he feels dead. Juugo doesn’t trust him.

“So?”  
“So, this is what Karin is trying to get through to you. We care about you, Sasuke, but we can’t help you if you don’t help yourself.”   
“You’re all just rubbing it in my face, aren’t you. Look at us and our self control, we’re not wild and stupid like Sasuke! You’re all talking behind my back.”   
“This is what Karin is saying, Sasuke. You throw things back at us, you get mean when you get uncomfortable because you know we’re right. It makes you uncomfortable because you know, deep down, that this isn’t the way to deal with your problems.”   
“Are you just saying I’m weak, then? Is that the issue, that I’m weak?”

“The issue is that you’re defensive and mean, and won’t let anyone help you.”  
“I don’t _need_ help!”   
“There’s nothing wrong with asking for help, Sasuke,” Juugo says as gently, as kindly and softly as he always does, and it infuriates Sasuke. He doesn’t _need_ to be coddled like a child, like he’s incapable of doing anything for himself.   
“You all treat me with kid gloves, like I’m incapable of doing anything for myself!”   
Juugo sighs. “Sasuke, we don’t mean to act like that. We’re just worried about you. We only want the best for you.”   
“You think I’m weak.”   
“Who told you that’s a bad thing to be?”   
Sasuke doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have an answer. “I want to see the Hokage again. I want more peace talks.”

“You can’t keep living the way Orochimaru taught you to live, or else you’ll become a shadow of him, Sasuke. You’re not that man.”  
“Fuck you, Juugo. I am nothing like Orochimaru. I’ll never be him,” Sasuke spits, and he leaves Juugo. He stalks out of his own tent, no matter whether that’s giving in to Juugo by letting him take over Sasuke’s living space, and goes in search of a fucking drink.

 

The mess is cramped and rowdy. No one’s come to him about making it bigger, but Sasuke thinks he ought to schedule some sort of meetings to discuss the situation. One of many jobs he ought to do, but never has the fucking time to get around to it. When he finally gets to his to-do list of odd organisational crap, he’s going to have a heart attack out of sheer lack of will to go on.

It doesn’t take him too long to get to the bar, people moving around him and letting him take their spot, and the bartender nearly has a heart attack when she sees him. She scrambles to finish her current order, dropping the coins all over the bar and nearly teleporting in front of him.

“A glass of your strongest ale, and…” he turns back to count all the people who let him by, as well as the people to his side that had been waiting before him, “and fifteen shots of vodka. Cheers.”

She’s so nervous, she spills most of the first shot on the bar, and Sasuke smiles.   
“May I?” he asks her, and she passes him the bottle. He lines the glasses up in a line, and deftly pours out the shots for her.

She nearly passes out.

He winks, “Thanks,” and passes the bottle back, turning to hand out the shots to the people around him. “To Oto and safe lives,” he toasts, clinks his shot glass against his neighbour’s, and takes the shot. As always, vodka tastes of nothing but horribleness, but Sasuke’s favourite drinks aren’t shot material.

She hands him his beer with shaking hands, and he passes her the cash and a generous tip, to hopefully stop her from having a heart attack out of shock. “Enjoy, sir,” she whispers, hoarse.  
“Thank you,” he says, “you get yourself something as well, put it on my tab. And… anyone who orders peach schnapps tonight, it’s on me.”

The next person who is served orders ten double peach schnapps. Sasuke hopes he isn’t drinking it all himself, the greedy pig.

 

The ale is okay, and Sasuke makes a note to himself to get some better fucking alcohol in this fucking camp, as he sits down at a random table. Everyone at the table is deathly quiet, staring at him with wide eyes.

“Oh. Hello again, N-Naegi Naegi Yuta.”  
“H-hello, sir,” she stammers. She looks like she’s ready to piss herself out of fright.   
Sasuke turns to the man he’s sitting beside, and holds out his hand. “I’m Sasuke Uchiha.”

“Saburo Uyemura,” he says, shaking Sasuke’s hand too firmly and for too long, “it’s an honour to finally meet you.”

“Jun Lin,” the man across from Sasuke introduces himself, and Sasuke shakes his hand. His shake is a little on the weak side.  
“I’m Touma Uyemura!” the one sitting on Saburo’s other side says, and Sasuke has to lean across Saburo in order to properly shake his hand.   
“Brothers?” Sasuke asks.   
“Yeah, Touma’s my little bro,” Saburo punches Touma lightly on the arm, grinning and laughing with him. Sasuke feels a pang of something, like he should be nostalgic. He just smiles.

“Take care,” Sasuke tells them, raising his glass in a toast.  
“To prosperity, and the end of the fucking war,” Jun toasts, knocking his glass into Sasuke’s. Sasuke can see the second he double thinks his actions, his face falling when he remembers the person he’s toasting is the one profiting the most off this war, when he worries that now he’s gonna get his head chopped off like that traitor, dragged to the centre of the camp as everyone watches him shit himself when his life ends.

“To the end of the fucking war,” Sasuke repeats, and everyone cheers and smashes their glasses into one another and Sasuke’s happy.

“I’ve been at this cause for five fucking years. I just want to go home,” Saburo complains, and everyone around the table takes a drink.  
“I need a fucking holiday,” Touma whines.

“ _You_ need a holiday?” Sasuke snorts, “I need a fucking afternoon off. I’m going gray at 22.”

“What? You’re 22? _Shit,”_ Jun swears, slumping down against the table, “I’m so fucking old.”

“Did you not know how old I am?” Sasuke asks, curious. Sometimes he forgets not everyone knows the ins and outs of his life. He’s not history books quite yet.

“No offence taken, uh, sir,” Touma says, “I don’t think many people actually think about you as, uh, a person? Y’know?”

“What?”

“It’s just that, you’re a leader, and you’re always on your horse and kinda scary? So people don’t like, think of you as someone like them, who ages and stuff. That sounds bad. But I think everyone just kind of thinks of you as an entity that just came into being as the Otokage.”

“Oh.”   
“Well,” Saburo cuts in, “I’ve been here for fucking years and I am _ready_ to go home.”

“Hear, hear!”

 

“You’re an idiot, Sasuke,” Karin walks in with no announcement, half way through Sasuke’s bath.

“What have I done this time, Karin?”

“You sent a letter to the Hokage without my permission? You set up this meeting without telling me?”

“I didn’t realise you were the Otokage, Karin, if only someone had informed me of my early retirement.”

“I am _sick_ and _tired_ of you being a smart-ass when you know what I’m talking about! You don’t just get to do whatever you want, when you want to, just because you’re the Otokage. You don’t get to do whatever you want, just because you had a drunken premonition that this was maybe a route worth considering!”

“I am going to meet with the Hokage, we are going to sort out a peace treaty, and this whole thing will be sorted, once and for all.”

“Politics don’t _work_ like that, Sasuke. It’s not something you can, you can _check off_ like you never need to think about Konoha again! It’s a relationship, not a divorce settlement.”

“If you don’t like the way I fucking operate, feel free to leave! May the heavens forbid your little puppet becomes a _real boy.”_

“Jesus. Fucking. Christ. You’re impossible. I’m arguing with a brick wall.”

“The door is that way, Karin.”

“Okay. Fine. I’ll fucking go. Don’t come crying to me when you fuck up and everything is up in smoke! I’ll be in goddamned… Tetsu, farming some fucking pigs. I won’t care about your bullshit at all!”  
“You’ll never be happy in Tetsu farming fucking pigs.”   
“And you’ll _only_ be happy in the middle of battle, won’t you? You’re only happy when you’re the most powerful man in the room and you’ve got the blood of families staining your shirt.”

“Is that wrong?” Sasuke asks, and Karin shakes her head, walking out of the room. She’s ignoring him, she’s leaving, and he screams at her instead of telling her how much he wishes she’d stay, how he only wants her approval in life, “that’s what you moulded me into! Is that so fucking _wrong?”_

 

“Lady Karin is not joining us?” Hirayama asks him, the fucking imbecile, and Sasuke nearly stabs him out of sheer irritation.   
“She is no lady,” Sasuke sneers through gritted teeth, and Juugo takes Sasuke by the hand and squeezes before Sasuke guts the poor general.

Sasuke needs a fucking drink.

He doesn’t get one before he walks into Konoha, just Sasuke and Juugo and Suigetsu and a small cadre of his leadership and bodyguards, and Sasuke breaches the threshold of the village that raised him and destroyed him and warped him into a monster. The air is crisp, not cold, but with the autumnal bite to it he remembers from his youth. It’s calming, in the same way that an ice bath or a kick in the balls is.

People stare at them, because of course they do. They act like Sasuke can’t read their lips, that he doesn’t know what they’re whispering about him when they think he can’t hear. The fools, have they already forgotten the power of the Sharingan? Does a Mangekyo mean nothing in this city anymore?

They aren’t meeting in the Hokage’s residence, instead they’re headed to a new meeting hall, towards the east of Konoha. Sasuke’s never been here before - he can’t tell if they built it in the reconstruction or when he was gone, but either way, he hates it.

Part of his hatred is of the fact that Konoha has changed without him, has moved on. It doesn’t give a shit about his feelings anymore, and it doesn’t want to be his home.

Half of the new meeting hall is situated on what Sasuke is pretty sure used to be Uchiha land. He supposes that without Uchihas, there need not be any Uchiha grounds. He hadn’t realised he’d been missing a vital organ until someone showed him the details of the removal surgery. He could almost vomit.

He keeps his head held high, he steels himself, and he walks through Konoha. Not as the boy it raised, nor as the troubled teenager. He is fire and lightning and power and he is going to bring peace and prosperity to his land if he has to gut Kakashi and bring his liver home.

 

Negotiations are actually very boring, at the end of the day. The tension in the room is exhausting, and everyone is on edge, but nothing actually exciting happens. Sasuke hadn’t really realised how much of peace was bickering over small things, specific lines in contracts, exact tariffs on trade, quotas on immigration.

It’s fucking stupid, and he isn’t as involved in any of it. Sasuke’s leadership style has always been about deferring to experts, and just choosing the right person for the right job. He isn’t as big headed as to believe he is very smart in the matters of running a country, or skilled in the art of diplomacy.

He’s real good at like, hitting stuff hard, though.

Negotiations are boring without Karin and without Suigetsu talking to him the entire time, and Sasuke passes through them in a haze of mild drunkenness and hopes Juugo won’t lead him wrong. He thinks he’s doing pretty well at hiding his inebriation from the Leaf’s negotiators, but he knows nothing has slipped by Juugo and Suigetsu. He supposes that’s what he pays them for.

 

So, when they enter the main conference room on the fifth day, they are not expecting a different sort of welcome than the one they previously received.   
“Why, Naruto,” Sasuke says, the first to break the silence, “if all you wanted was to get all up on my hot body, you didn’t have to hold a kunai to my throat.”

“Shut up,” Naruto growls back, and he presses the kunai closer to Sasuke’s skin, right underneath his jaw. It hurts Sasuke’s throat. He pays it no mind.  
“Is that another kunai, or are you just happy to see me?” Sasuke just keeps talking, because he’s pretty sure Naruto would never be able to kill him, and he’s willing to stake his life on that fact. Perhaps that’s too generous, but it’s the only hope he has of getting out of this situation with the upper hand.   
“Shut up, Uchiha,” Shikamaru echoes Naruto as he walks into the room with fucking Kakashi right beside him, “you are either an idiot or a narcissist if you think you can walk in like nothing is wrong.”   
“Well, I am _probably_ both, but I also genuinely don’t understand why Naruto is currently threatening my life.”

“Shut _up,”_ Naruto just presses the kunai even harder into Sasuke’s throat, and he shuts up.

Kakashi walks around the conference room, past all the Oto representatives who are five seconds away from starting an all-out war, and sits down at his seat.

Sasuke fucking hates him. He hates his stupid fucking guts and the way he gets to act so cool when he’s betrayed their trust like this. Why the _fuck_ is he keeping Sasuke hostage? What the fuck is this meant to achieve?

“Sit down, Otokage,” Kakashi says, and Naruto shoves Sasuke carelessly towards his seat.

If Sasuke’s anger was materialised right now, it would be hotter than his Amaterasu burning pitch. He sits down.

“If you want to get out of this room alive, Otokage,” Kakashi says, slowly, calmly, like a death row prisoner walking towards Sasuke’s execution block, “you ought to comply with our questioning.”

“Fine,” Sasuke growls, balling his hands into fists underneath the table and wishing desperately that Karin was here. She’d fix this, with her silver tongue and easy grace, and he finally, truly understands what she meant when she called him an idiot. With his idealism and hope, he walked into the bear’s den thinking he’d make friends with it.

“If you call your men off, Uchiha, we can sort this whole situation out with minimal casualties,” Shikamaru says.

“My men are very clearly not called _on,_ Nara, as of the fact they are currently being restrained by _your_ men.”

“Your _army,_ Uchiha, don’t play the fool with me,” Shikamaru snaps, and Sasuke is five seconds away from launching himself across the room and putting the Hokage in a chokehold.

“Deactivate your Sharingan,” Naruto threatens, and Sasuke hadn’t even realised it was up until he felt Naruto’s kunai break his skin and the trickle of blood run down the knot of his throat. Sasuke doesn’t do it, he keeps watching Kakashi and Shikamaru and the rest of the room, searching for a lie. Naruto grabs at his hair, now a few fingers width long, and pulls. Sasuke does not relent.

“Sasuke,” Suigetsu pleads, quietly. Sasuke doesn’t even hear him speak, just sees the movement of his lips out of the corner of his eyes, and he looks back at the Hokage with eyes as jet as unlit coals.

“My army is not under any order to attack, Hokage.”

“Your army, then, has attacked without any order.”  
“Ridiculous. Why would they do that?”

“I suspect,” Kakashi says, and Sasuke wishes he could tear his ribs from his chest and proclaim himself king, if only to stop from suffering this farce, “you are not being wholly truthful with us.”   
“You suspect wrong, then. I have nothing to gain from deceiving you and starting a war. Obviously, if I were to begin fighting Konohagakure, I would not put myself in a position where I could, so easily, get caught.”

“You _were_ always one to gloat,” Shikamaru says, and Sasuke imagines setting him alight with Amaterasu, watching his skin melt from his bones and his eyeballs drip from his sockets. The only thing stopping him from doing so is the fear of retaliation. (It’s the only thing stopping him from a lot of what he wants to do.) “Considering you haven’t taken this negotiation seriously - you haven’t even brought your most skilled tactical advisor - one has to imagine you were planning something. And this morning, your men charged on Konoha’s forces.”

“Karin and I had an _argument,_ ” Sasuke splutters, and were it not for Naruto’s grip on his hair, Sasuke would have charged forward and spat in Shikamaru’s eye, “I wasn’t planning a fucking _betrayal._ May the gods show the true path, you’re a fucking fool if you think that I was trying to deceive you! What the fuck would I get from waging war against a nation three times the size of mine? If I was planning my own suicide, there are much easier ways to go about it!”

“The facts remain the same,” Kakashi says, his face unreadable, and Sasuke wishes they could just settle this man on man, chidori against chidori, Sasuke’s blade against Kakashi’s. That’d show him the truth. “Oto’s forces incited war against Konoha this morning, and you have to answer for your nation’s actions.”

“If you _fucking_ let me go, I could _fucking_ sort it out!”

“We are not going to let you go free so you can go issue orders to your troops, Uchiha,” Shikamaru says, like it’s so obvious, like Sasuke is guilty of something he _hasn’t done._

Persecute him for his crimes, sure. But Sasuke draws the line at fabricated excuses for something that hasn’t happened.

“Well, I’m _sorry,_ but this wasn’t fucking me, and I am not going to sit around and let you order me about like I’m still your subordinate, Kakashi. And I am certainly not going to let you raze Oto to the ground!”

Before Naruto could act, before any of them could slam a seal onto Sasuke’s back, Sasuke’s activated his Sharingan and teleported away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on tumblr for other updates on this fic, aesthetic posts, and my general whining about writing @toadsages :) I hope to have the last chapter out a whole lot fucking sooner!


	4. defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this IS the last chapter of this particular fic. hope you like it :)

Sasuke didn’t have a chance to get look back, even when all his best men were tied up in that room and probably being treated terribly. He locked away every part of him that felt sad about it, ever part of him that could possibly distract him from his mission. He needs to stop Kabuto, not just for the sake of his nation, the sake of his sanity, or the sake of his lifestyle, but for all the people who are on the precipice of being slaughtered for the dictatorial aspirations of a madman. 

 

Usually Sasuke doesn’t teleport over such long distances, and definitely not one right after the other. The more he evolves it, the more it seems stolen from Obito’s Kamui, but he certainly doesn’t have the control over it that Obito had. He can’t keep it up for too much longer, either - he’s pushing himself just to get outside of Konoha’s immediate vicinity.

 

He has a moment of regret for leaving Heihe in Konoha’s stables, but it’s too late to run out and try and get him back. He’s stuck between two armies, with only himself to rely on. He’s a fool - he’s gone soft since the last war, started to relax, thinking he had people by his side, watching his back. He’s not used to relying only on himself. He’s a stupid motherfucker. 

 

He keeps running. The trees blend into browny-green washes of colour, only important to him in the brief second where his shoe touches the branch, and then it is immediately gone from his attention. He’s flickering in and out of reality, operating on fumes and anger and dismay and horror and hope and the last residues of chakra he possibly has, needing to escape and escape and escape and escape and leave and run away and he needs to get there, he needs to be with his people and to make sure they are okay and to not let a single child be hurt or a single man die and his heart aches so much he feels like he is going to explode or drop dead. 

 

His heart aches and aches and aches. He’s worried he’s too late. He fears he hasn’t done enough. He wishes he was smarter, better, faster, because even being the second most powerful ninja in the world, the one who took down a literal god,  _ even then,  _ he still couldn’t save his people. He’s a fucking failure. 

 

He makes a mistake. His foot gives out, a branch breaks, and he plummets straight down. He doesn’t have a chance, the energy, the millisecond he needs to make a snap decision to save himself, and he falls through a stretch of branches, each one giving way to him and snapping, doing nothing to break his fall. His back slams into the ground, and he’s pretty sure he hears a cracking noise that doesn’t sound so good. Everything hurts, all the breath has left his lungs, he’s out of chakra and out of time. 

 

He passes out. 

  
  
  


He wakes up to the soft crackle of a small fire and the smell of roasting fish. There’s a babble of a little brook and the rustle of fabric, the chirping of crickets and the wet of grass. He doesn’t open his eyes, just pretends he’s still passed out. 

 

If he’s not tied up or dead, he’s most likely in good hands. No one wanting to capture him would dare to leave him so intact. They ought to break his fucking legs, or  _ something _ .

 

“Y’know, Sasuke,” he hears, “we really ought to be dragging you back to Konoha right now. You owe us a massive one.” 

He doesn’t stir, lying as still as he possibly can. 

She sighs, walks over to him, and then forces his eyelids open with her fingers, “I’m a medical professional. You think I don’t know when a patient is sleeping or awake?”

“Am I your patient, now?” Sasuke says, and it’s weird. He hasn’t seen her for what seems like forever. He hasn’t talked to her like this since the war. He feels awful for what he did for her. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.

“Unfortunately for me, I seem to have a soft spot for you,” Sakura smiles, and helps him into a sitting position, “Naruto’s scouting the area. You’re lucky we’re the ones who found you - anyone else would’ve taken you straight back to Konoha.”

“Why didn’t you?”

She laughs, but there’s not much humour in it. She sounds desperate, tired, unsure. He did this to her. “I really don’t know. Naruto still sees… something in you, I suppose. I don’t know why I went along with it. I guess I’m a sucker for pain.”

“I just want to save my family. There’s so many people who’ll die for no reason - they all have families. Loved ones. They’re my people, Sakura. I can’t just sit still and watch people be slaughtered like cattle.”

She laughs again, a high staccato, a burst of crazed snorts, and shakes her head. “I don’t know whether you’re a good liar or I’m just a fool for believing you. I do. I don’t believe you’d be as stupid to stage a double bluff and then run away. You’re really not that stupid  _ or  _ smart.”

“Thanks, I guess…” 

 

She shakes her head and hands him a fish. It smells good, and he’s hungry. He doesn’t know how long he was out for, and he needs to replenish his strength. He doesn’t realise until after that he’s devoured his fish, small bones still resting on his tongue as he looks up again at Sakura. 

 

She’s watching him. She’s got something like a smile on her face, but an absent sort of happiness. She’s not really here, but he can’t tell where she is. 

“Where’s Naruto?” he asks. 

“He’s scouting, I told you,” she says. 

“He’s been away for a long time for scouting.”

“Maybe he’s caught up in something.”

 

It doesn’t feel right. Sasuke doesn’t know how long before he woke up that Naruto left, but even then, he should be back by now. There’s no reason for him to taking this long for a simple scouting mission. 

 

“Sakura,” Sasuke says, standing up, “he shouldn’t be gone this long.”

Her head snaps his way and she glares, “are you concerned about his safety, or are you worried he’s running back to Konoha to turn you in?”

“I don’t think it’s wrong to be a little bit of both!” he retorts, getting ready to run if she makes a move on him, but she doesn’t. He doesn’t understand what fucking game she’s playing. 

“You really can’t imagine someone caring about you, can you? You’re so caught up in what you think is happening, your little predictions, the games you think everyone else is playing. As long as you can invent a convincing enough series of events, you’ll believe it, regardless of the facts!” 

“Naruto was on Kakashi’s side, it’s not too much of a stretch to think-”

“He was playing the  _ game,  _ Sasuke, something that you refuse to do. That’s why he’s allowed to be  _ here,  _ saving you!”

“Well, he’s not  _ here,  _ is he?” Sasuke shouts, and the second he does, he regrets it. He’s in the middle of enemy territory, having an argument instead of getting away. He shouldn’t be wasting time like this, continuing childhood arguments when lives are on the line. 

 

He turns, and a branch snaps. 

“Who isn’t here?” Naruto asks, and he looks apologetic and sweet. Sasuke hasn’t seen him like that in a long time, the childish grin that makes him look like he’s still a naive genin stretching from ear to ear. He doesn’t know what to make of it. 

 

It would be surprising, to see Naruto so cheery, were it not for the infinitely more surprising person behind him. Karin is standing just a few metres away, looking like she was about to choke him out. 

 

“Karin,” Sasuke says, but he doesn’t know what else he ought to say. He doesn’t think he can escape her rage.

“Are you sober?” she snaps, but she’s interrupted by Naruto. 

“I found her looking for Sasuke. Sorry we took so long, Sakura. Oh! Karin, this is Sakura, my friend. Sakura, this is Karin, Sasuke’s friend. She’s another Uzumaki, y’know!”

“Thanks, Naruto,” Karin’s polite to him, probably because he wasn’t an absolute cunt to her. It makes the most sense, really, that everyone in his life would give him up for Naruto. Sasuke would give himself up for Naruto, if he really had the option. One of them is objectively a better man. “We really ought to get a move on. Konoha is closing in on us here, and we need to get to the front lines, quick. It’s not looking pretty.” 

  
  
  


“Stop!” Karin hushes him, grabbing his arm and pulling him back from his next leap, “You’re not just going to waltz in there and expect everyone to listen to you, are you?” 

 

Sasuke doesn’t say anything. That  _ was  _ his plan. It made sense in his head - his troops ought to listen to him, it wouldn’t be fair if they didn’t. It should work out that he can just walk up to them and tell them to stop, call the war off, and prove to Konoha he was telling the truth. 

 

“Oh my God,” Karin hisses, awed at his naivete. It always strikes at the most impossible moments, just when she’s started believe he’s grown sensible, he turns and does exactly what she was hoping he wouldn’t. 

“What’s wrong with that?” Naruto asks, and Sasuke’s glad he’s still an oblivious dumbass. Sasuke’s stupid, but he’s aware enough of his idiocy that he won’t risk asking Karin the question. 

“Are you serious?” she asks, and she’s so confounded at his idiocy she forgets the time constraints they’re under, “they’re in a middle of a war. We don’t know how many of them are loyal to Kabuto. They could be under orders to kill us on sight. It could be suicide.” 

 

Sasuke feels sick. He hadn’t considered that, the possibility that his people were so dissatisfied with him that they’d turn to another, that they’d think  _ Kabuto  _ would be a better leader. 

 

He has to make a decision. 

 

“If I have to kill myself to save my people, I will,” Sasuke decides, and he leaps off before anyone can stop him. 

  
  
  


The usual order of his camps is ruined. No one notices he’s here, and he doesn’t ask for their attention. He just needs to know who is running the place and kill them. There’s gotta be someone Kabuto has in charge, telling them all about his plans. Sasuke’s just gotta find them. 

 

No one really notices him, as long as he walks around with purpose. Everyone’s too busy with other things to notice a dirty and worn version of their leader, he’s just one of the many faceless, battle-worn nin trying to get somewhere. Medical tents, back onto the field, mess hall, to the horses, it’s all the same. Always rushing and never going anywhere. 

 

Sasuke heads to the command tent. It’s the most logical place to start, he’ll find a warm body there. Someone’s going to tell him something, whether they want to or not. 

 

It’s harder to navigate the camp this time. The layout is sloppier than Sasuke’s ever seen it - clearly, without his anal approach to detail, everyone’s slacked on the little things. Sasuke would never let that happen - his father beat into the importance of keeping everything in order from a young age. (If only the man internalised that lesson.)

 

The ger is the same as it always is, but it feels strange to be entering it without his team. It feels like he’s fucked up some sacred ritual, and that everything is going to go to shit because he couldn’t wait. There’s no point in waiting now. He bursts in. 

 

It’s not that dramatic, when they realise he’s here. Sasuke kills the first person in the room, some poor soul keeping watch, with a quick kunai to the throat. It’s so quiet that no one notices someone’s been murdered for another couple of minutes. It happens slowly, and like a constipated shit, then all at once. 

 

Apart from the dead guard, there’s only six others. Hirayama is here, the fool. He’s clearly the little ringleader, the one giving out the orders on the ground. Sasuke supposes he feels slighted, and took Yakushi’s opportunity as a blessing. A couple miscellaneous people he doesn’t recognise, Kobayashi (of course, she never had a backbone), and Sasuke’s little friends, Naegi Yuta and Saburo Uyemura. Sasuke looks back. Jun Lin is on the floor, bleeding out. 

 

“Uyemura,” Sasuke barks, “what is happening?” 

 

The room is silent. 

 

“Well?” Sasuke snaps, and it seems to spur people into motion. 

“S-sir,” Kobayashi stammers, and that’s enough for Sasuke. 

“You tire me,” he says, and suddenly there are three shuriken buried in her. She gapes, a hand shaking as it comes up to the shuriken piercing her eye, and then she screams. Sasuke doesn’t care. “Fine. If you won’t tell me what you’re doing, tell me this: where is Kabuto?” 

“We don’t know, sir!” One of the soldiers Sasuke doesn’t recognise replies, and that’s not good enough for him. He sets both of the soldier’s feet alight with Amaterasu. If they want, they can saw their own legs off.    
“You somehow think that I’m going to accept an answer I don’t like. Did I really hire only fools? I’ll ask again: Where is Kabuto Yakushi?” 

“We really don’t know,” Hirayama grits out, the anger in his voice palpable. Huh. He really does hate Sasuke. What an idiot. 

“The only thing I hate more than a traitor,” Sasuke says, twirling his sword around in big swooping loops, “is a traitor who does not know how to lie.” 

 

Hirayama’s eyes still blink when his head hits the ground. 

 

“They really do not know,” a voice says behind Sasuke, and he whirls around because he  _ knows  _ that voice. 

 

Slinking on the ground are his two best confidantes, the creatures he thought he could trust the most. He was a fool, he supposes, to have trusted snakes with his secrets. He was childish to still take the loyalty of pets as a given. 

 

They don’t have expressions. They don’t have faces. For once, Sasuke doesn’t anthropomorphise these creatures. He sees them as they are. 

 

Fanchan’s tongue flicks out, and it’s not as comforting as it used to be. “We told him.”

“Of course,” Sasuke says, coolly, because it all makes sense. Only snakes would sign contracts with two opposing forces. Only snakes would care so little as to play the field.

“Would you like to know where he is?”

“How would I know you’re telling the truth?” 

“Why wouldn’t we?”    
“You never told me before.”

“You never asked.” 

 

What has changed? Nothing, but the state of knowledge Sasuke possesses. Everything that was once clouded - by fear, love, anguish, happiness - is now clear. Sasuke may not have always known what his companions were doing, but he did know who they were. It was his fault for ignoring the signs, it was his fault for blinding himself. He suckled on the poisoned teat and grew fat with assurance and compliance. 

 

No longer. 

 

One thing to know about Sasuke is that he could never stand being anything but everyone’s everything. It was the reason he never went back to Konoha - how could he be satisfied with having only a small piece of the pie, when he could have his whole cake, and eat it, too? When you have thousands of men adoring you, as their leader, their reason for living, their  _ god,  _ what would you give that up for? Friendship? History? Family? 

 

The virtuous man may be an honourable one, and an honourable man may be a loyal one. Sasuke’s father taught him the values of benevolence, justice, integrity, piety, and loyalty. Sasuke’s father taught him how to plan a coup and destroy what you love most. The loyal man may be a pious one, but the pious man is a curiosity to gawk at. 

 

Yanjing hasn’t said anything at all. With a flash of Sasuke’s blade, she never says anything ever again. 

 

“Tell me where he is,” Sasuke says, and this time, he thinks Fanchan looks almost afraid. 

  
  
  


It’s strange, walking around the camp. No one seems to have noticed their interim leader has been slaughtered. No one seems to have noticed their king walks among them. It shows Sasuke how he really isn’t needed - he’s as disposable as everyone else, it’s just no one has managed to off him quite yet. 

 

If only they could. 

 

Soon, they’ll all be running around for a different reason: when Uyemura and Yuta spread the word that Sasuke didn’t authorise this, that Sasuke killed Hirayama, they’ll have to decide whether they want to listen to him or defy him. Sasuke assumes they all will choose the path of least resistance. 

 

When he comes back, they’ll have decided. When he comes back, he’ll discover his fate. 

 

He steals a horse. She’s a pale grey thoroughbred, tall and proud, with a neat mane and tail. Whoever she belongs to clearly takes care of her, and for a good reason, too. She’s a strong mare, at the peak of her usefulness and ready for war. He’ll ride her into battle. Nothing less would do for him. 

 

She listens to him immediately. Sasuke doesn’t wonder why. He grabs her bit and adjusts her reigns, and then hauls himself onto her bare back with the kind of practice a king shouldn’t have. (No other kage would ride a horse bareback into battle - the humiliation would last long after the war was over. Sasuke doesn’t really care about embarrassment any more. If he comes back with his life, that’s enough for him.) She walks out of her stall, merges with the traffic, and no one notices this horse is stolen. 

 

With Fanchan on his shoulder, he gallops away from camp and back into the forest. 

  
  
  


Sasuke knows he’s getting to the right place when he sees a huge purple wall of flesh blocking his way. 

 

Of course Manda would be here. Kabuto isn’t smart enough to disguise his hiding spot, or maybe he just doesn’t care. This whole place smells like a trap. Sasuke’s not smart enough to avoid the bait. 

 

He’s too impatient to check the place out and find a surprise entry way in. This is basic ninja stuff he’s eschewing, just to get back at an asshole that fucked him over. He shouldn’t be doing this, he should know better than to walk straight into the lion’s den. If Karin were here, she’d knock his lights out for just thinking about it. He does it anyway. 

 

Manda doesn’t look surprised that he’s here. Manda doesn’t even say anything, just looks at him with those unfeeling jade eyes of his. Sasuke’s never liked Manda, not even when he was dying to save Sasuke’s life. 

 

“Will you let me pass?” Sasuke asks. 

 

Manda doesn’t deign to reply. He lifts the end of his tail up, just enough for Sasuke to get through. Sasuke gets the message. Grabbing Fanchan and jumping off the horse, Sasuke passes by Manda with no problem. 

 

Kabuto  _ wants  _ him to come to him. Kabuto thinks he can best Sasuke. Sasuke doesn’t know whether that’s concerning or not. 

 

Sasuke’s only a few metres closer to his target when he hears the whinny and crunch of Manda eating the mare. He forces himself to not care. 

 

He crushes Fanchan in his hand. Snakes have very weak spines. Dead, his two friends are just rubbery little worm-like things, not even long enough to wrap three times around his bicep. 

  
  
  
  


He doesn’t actually see Kabuto. He just sees red. 

 

It’s an emotion he’s felt a few times before: when he killed Orochimaru, when he killed Itachi, when he killed Madara. It’s horrifying, exhilarating, disgusting, fun. He wants to pull this man’s spleen out with his bare hands and force him to eat his own liver. He wants to torture Kabuto, make him scream until his throat is raw, cry until his eyeballs are drier than dust, and break each individual bone in his body. Kabuto doesn’t deserve to die quickly. 

 

Sasuke is going to make Kabuto see his ancestors and then have him watch as they bar him from heaven. 

 

The small clearing that Kabuto had been hiding from the battle in is about thirty paces across and forty paces down, covered with a little bit of patchy grass, but mostly dry clay. It’s not too far from the thickest part of the battle, but it certainly is farther than Sasuke would ever allow one of his commanders to be. A leader is only away from the battle if he thinks his soldiers are expendable, if he has no confidence in his win and would rather let others get needlessly slaughtered to save his own skin. 

 

Sasuke trusts no man like that. 

 

Sasuke says nothing. He throws the dead carcasses of his snakes at Kabuto’s feet. They stopped twitching in his hand a while ago, but a little bit of blood still splatters onto the mud. They hit the ground with a wet thwack, soft and squidgy, like when cooked udon noodles fall on the floor. Kabuto doesn’t even look surprised. 

 

“You haven’t grown any more intelligent, Sasuke,” he says, and he looks  _ amused,  _ like ruining Sasuke’s life is just some  _ game  _ to him. 

 

Sasuke is so angry he can’t say anything. He doesn’t have anything to say. He’s so consumed with his grief that he could almost burst, just inflate and pop like a balloon. 

 

He thinks of Itachi. His brother wouldn’t have wanted this. His brother wouldn't have liked who he became. His brother would have stopped this war before it began. His brother would have been an effective diplomat. His brother would have made sure everyone was safe. 

 

Sasuke has always been a cheap replacement for Itachi. 

 

“I can’t say I’m not disappointed, Sasuke. It took you so long to find me. I had expected a little more resistance from you,” he says, and Sasuke hates his fucking voice. It’s so calm, collected, cunning. It’s not the voice of a man who’s just seen the face of his killer. It’s the voice of a cat who just caught a mouse in a trap. 

 

All of a sudden, the clearing feels too small. 

 

“Unless, of course,” Kabuto continues in that dumb, simpering, condescending tone of his, “you were just using me as a convenient excuse. After all, you’ve been angling for a war with Konoha for a long time. Don’t think I forgot that you used to claim you were to be the next hokage.” 

 

Sasuke doesn’t remember moving. All he knows is that suddenly he has his sword to Kabuto’s throat, and the other doesn’t even seem a little bit scared. 

 

“You son of a bitch,” Sasuke hisses, pressing the sword closer to Kabuto’s throat. 

“There’s no one watching us, Sasuke,” Kabuto says, “there’s no need to pretend. You hate your life. I pretend to kill you, you can go and live your own life. You get to start over. I’ll even send you money, if you want. You can become a fish farmer in Kiri. We both get what we want.”

“You don’t know what I want.”

“Neither do you.” 

 

Sasuke doesn’t say anything. It’s horrible to say, and he’ll never admit it, not in a million years, but a part of him that’s larger than he’s comfortable wants to take Kabuto’s offer. He wants to leave all his belongings behind, wander the world, not have to worry about anything but today. To only have the weight of his pack on his shoulders. 

 

“Come on,” Kabuto says, “make this easy on the both of us. Then I won’t have to kill you.” 

Sasuke snorts. 

“I know my jutsu isn’t as flashy or brutally strong as yours,” Kabuto says, shrugging, and before Sasuke can react, his hand is cupping the back of Sasuke’s neck, “I can still paralyse you before my body hits the ground.”

 

Well. Shit. 

 

“This can be all very easy for you, Sasuke, or it can be very hard.”

“You’re going to kill me anyway, aren’t you?” 

“I would prefer not to.”

“Why not? You fucking hate me. This is your chance. Look,” Sasuke says, and he drops his sword. 

 

It falls to the ground with a soft thump, and nothing more. Giving up should be more epic, Sasuke thinks. Accepting his death doesn’t seem heroic. It seems foolish, it seems childish, it seems selfish to get to this moment, the culmination of his entire life, and leave. He regrets it instantly. He doesn’t try to do anything. 

 

“You really don’t care about your people, do you? Do you treat running a country like some sort of elaborate suicide attempt?” Kabuto asks in his clinician’s voice, the tone of a scientist seeing some sort of strange reaction and trying to puzzle it out. 

 

He doesn’t really care about Sasuke. Sasuke knows that. His eyes water. He blinks it away. 

 

Sasuke looks down at his hand, debating the chidori. He probably could manage to kill Kabuto before Kabuto totally kills him. He could bank on Sakura and Karin knowing where he is, hope they come quickly enough to heal him. 

 

Sasuke has never put his faith in the world, not since he did at seven years old and got a lifetime of trauma as payment. He must have been terrible in his past life for that kind of karma. He must have been an awful child for the universe to hand him that in return. 

 

He thinks of Itachi, what Itachi would have wanted. Would Itachi be satisfied if he died here? What would he think? If Sasuke failed, let Kabuto take him lying down, everything would have been in vain. His brother’s death would have been in vain. His people’s deaths would have been in vain. All the pain his friends felt throughout the years, the trials he put them through to pay the price of caring for him, all that would be a wasted effort. 

 

For this. Just for this. He’s going to die by Kabuto’s hand, some B-list enemy he’s never truly taken seriously. Is this karma? Is this the universe punishing him for his hubris? 

 

Fine. 

 

Sasuke rolls his head back, resting his head back on Kabuto’s hand. Sasuke sees the red of all the blood he’s ever shed. Sasuke sees the black of all the deaths he’s ever caused.

 

Their eyes meet. Kabuto’s chakra flares. Sasuke’s body crumples. 

 

“I know my jutsu isn’t as flashy or as brutally strong as yours,” Kabuto says. “I can still paralyse you before my body hits the ground.” 

 

Sasuke’s standing. Sasuke’s dropping his sword. Sasuke falls.

 

“I know my jutsu isn’t as flashy or as brutally strong as yours,” Kabuto screams. He’s scared now. He should be scared. 

 

“You’re going to kill me anyway, aren’t you?” Sasuke asks Kabuto. Kabuto looks into his Sharingan. 

“What have you done to me?” he asks Sasuke. 

“Why not?” Sasuke says, “You fucking hate me.” 

* * *

She’s been searching for him for ages, tracking his chakra with increasing levels of anxiety. There wasn’t any intense burst of chakra, something explosive and easily recognisable, and that made her job looking for him more difficult. She’s not used to the Land of Fire’s terrain, the dense woods throwing her off her usual game. Naruto’s helping, but he’s finding it as difficult as her, and he’s not nearly as worried as she is.

 

“Something bad has happened,” Karin says, starting to move erratically through the trees, like that’ll somehow help her find Sasuke faster. (It doesn’t.)

“You don’t know that,” Sakura tries, but Karin’s hearing absolutely none of it. 

“I  _ do! _ You don’t know him like I do. He should have done something flashy by now, we should be able to sense it.” 

 

Naruto doesn’t say anything, but his Six Paths Sage Mode flares with additional chakra. It’s distracting her from her goal. 

 

“Can you both just - don’t! Fuck!” she yells, grabbing her face and squeezing her nose, trying to focus, “I need to go. You’re not helping. Fuck this.” 

 

She picks a direction and just  _ heads,  _ relying on her gut instinct and not much else to lead her to Sasuke. She misses Suigetsu and Juugo. She wishes they were here, helping her. Naruto and Sakura are hot on her heels, but she doesn’t have the luxury of caring about them. 

 

Karin’s always trusted her intuition. It’s never led her wrong. Through thick and thin, the way she’s always managed to make a choice is by trusting the Lord, trusting the vibes of the air, trusting that He would guide her in the right direction. She wishes she’d been wrong more often, that she hadn’t used up all her luck for all those other petty things, not when she needs a miracle most now. 

 

She can barely see through her tears and the snot running down her face, leaking into her mouth and onto her chest and down to the ground below. The rain makes it harder, a steady drizzle that dampens the branches underfoot and drips onto her eyelashes, sticking them together. Her rosary bites into her hand, the blunt edges of the cross giving her some sort of pressure to focus her. She’s praying, praying for a sign, for  _ anything,  _ just something that gave her a hint of Sasuke. 

 

There’s a flare of Kabuto’s chakra. It’s brief, but it’s large enough that it gives her a general direction to head in. She corrects her direction, zagging sharply right as she speeds up, not giving a shit about whether she’s heading straight to her demise. 

 

Sasuke’s more important than her life. Sasuke’s always been more important than whatever she’s worth. 

 

Sakura and Naruto are calling to her from behind, trying to get her to stop, to let them help her. She can’t slow down, not for anything, not until she sees Sasuke. She  _ needs  _ it like she needs to breath, like a thirsty man aches for water. She can’t stop, she barrels towards the spot where Kabuto’s chakra flared with a single minded determination she’s previously only used for trying to take over the world. 

 

The first sign something is wrong is the lack of chakra she can sense as she gets closer to her goal. If Sasuke used some sort of space-time ninjutsu, she would have sensed it, so he  _ must  _ still be there. She just can’t feel it. 

 

The second sign that something has gone horribly, terribly awry is the ring of crushed trees surrounding the location she’d spotted Kabuto. It’s massive, a dry dent in the earth at least a couple metres across, fizzling with latent chakra. There’s a drying patch of blood on the ground, but Karin knows what human blood smells like. It doesn’t smell like Sasuke’s blood. The indent is still dry in a lot of patches, in distinct contrast to what the surrounding ground looks like, so Karin knows whatever made it must have only left recently. 

 

Whatever made it must have been huge. 

 

Karin only knows of one thing that could have made it. 

 

She presses on. It takes her too long and not long enough to breach a clearing where the battle  _ must  _ have taken place. It’s got Sasuke and Kabuto’s chakra all over it, but nothing else. There’s no marks of battle, no tell-tale lightning scorches that would show her how Sasuke fought. There’s nothing. 

 

There’s two dead snakes on the floor. One’s crushed, the other stabbed. Karin knows them, having been delivered many a message by the duo.

 

Sasuke’s sword is on the ground. It’s barely an arm’s length from where Sasuke’s body lays, completely still. 

 

There’s no chakra. 

 

Karin can’t move. 

 

She just stares, lets the rain drip down her face and squeezes her fist around her rosary. She doesn’t move. Sasuke doesn’t either. 

 

He looks so peaceful, like he’s sleeping in a way she knows he’s never rested. He’s never looked so calm, not as long a she’s known him. Sasuke lives like he’s filled with electricity and emotion, like every single moment he has a thousand chidoris ready to spill out, and it’s only by the force of his own willpower that his being stays inside his body. 

 

“Karin!” she hears Naruto shout as he and Sakura catch up to Karin. 

 

It’s the only thing that spurs Karin into motion. 

 

“No, no, no,” she whispers, trying to force her arm into Sasuke’s mouth, pushing down on the crown of his skull so his teeth break her skin. She needs this, it’s the only way to save him, she can just save him if she pours her life-force into him, he’s still there, he just needs saving. 

 

“Sasuke!” Naruto shouts, and Sakura isn’t far behind as they kneel down beside Karin. 

“Let me look at him,” Sakura asks with the matronly bedside manner of a medic-nin. 

 

Karin screams. Something wet drips down onto Sasuke’s chest, further soaking his clothes with water. There’s no blood. He looks so peaceful. She holds his body closer, rocking forward and backward, feeling absolutely nothing in him. 

 

“Karin, please, let me see,” Sakura asks again, trying to pry Karin’s arms off of Sasuke’s  _ cadaver,  _ and Karin lets out another howl. 

 

Somehow, between Naruto and Sakura, they get Karin off Sasuke’s body, manage to separate her from her dead friend while Sakura inspects the corpse and Naruto tries to comfort her. She’s still screaming, but she doesn’t even hear the sound. She only knows she’s still doing it because of the pressure on her chest, the rawness in her throat, the way the corners of her mouth feel like they’re about to split open. 

 

Naruto’s saying something to her, Sakura’s saying something to Naruto, but she can’t even hear what’s happening. She must be in some sort of wind tunnel, because all she hear is a loud rushing of air through her ears and the constant drip of rain on her face. 

 

Her fingers dig into the earth, pulling clumps of dirt up and diving down for more. The ground is hard, her long nails ache at the pressure put on them. She keeps digging, and digging, and every time Naruto tries to stop her she shakes him off and keeps digging and digging and digging and digging and the wet ground does not give way easily so she has to pull roots that cut at her hands out of the way and small gravel-like rocks get stuck in those cuts and she has worms in her hair and mud on her face and she keeps digging and Naruto tries to stop her and she can feel her finger-bones split her skin and she keeps digging and falls into the hole and the mound of earth she’s excavated slips back in so she has to keep pulling it out and pulling it out and pulling it out and she’s still fucking digging and 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much for all the kind words and support y'all have given me throughout this fic. i definitely have a sequel planned so that should come out some time, although i think i'm going to publish something happier before i post the sequel to this fic! i want to say a special thanks to moonz [washingtononyourside](https://archiveofourown.org/users/washingtononyourside/pseuds/washingtononyourside) for helping me edit and write, and raz [ razhong](https://razhong.tumblr.com/) for being awake at 5am to listen to me freak out and also drawing amazing art of this fic. go check it out if you haven't already! finally, please check me out/talk to me/reblog my posts/rec my fics on tumblr at [toadsages](https://toadsages.tumblr.com/tagged/.my%20fic) it means so much to me and feeds me in love. hope you enjoyed this journey!

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is part of a series that will come soon! subscribe to me if you'd like to be updated when it's published :D


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